--they do assemble

in moon on snow shown showing more of them gathering

 

—do they emerge from woods a broken line and one by one

—same stand of spruce same grotto—or do they arrive
in the field unknown unnoticed detached paths opening

on the perimeter a given time some inconspicuous agreement

 

firm loosely planned—letting them assemble as a herd?

 

is it permanent—more or less a unit—or is it a moment?
does the herd return regather or—separate and disappear—

 

slow and sudden out of nowhere to the middle of a silence
that they can hear the heart of cold the clearer part of night

 

when no one nothing important watches them and they have
the fields to themselves as each marks its own snow teasing

each step and scrape—unmolested at each bud seed straw

 

—permitting each repeatedly to pause to find a root find all

 

that matters to anticipate await the next night and the next?


- by Roger Desy,
first published in The Kenyon Review Online