Sundown: mist pools on the creek
Ten does rest in twilight
eyes liquid, ears erect
legs folded under the rounded
hummocks of rump and thigh,
ready to spring up and leap away
at the snap of a twig.
Dusk fades into night, deer
merge with their shadows.
Mountains join their reflections
on the star-silvered pool.
an ethereal horizon hovers
between forests and fields,
mountains and memory.
For a moment I glance away
the mountain has vanished
the deer have slipped into darkness.
Where lies the boundary between
deer and their shadows, darkness and light?
Where lies the boundary between
field and forest, a dying day
approaching night?
Which is real, which is a mirage—
the deer, my dreams, or yesterday?
Karns Meadow Park, Jackson Wyoming
Susan Marsh lives in Jackson, Wyoming. She has combined her interests in poetry and natural science into a body of work that explores the relationship of humans to each other and to the wild. Her poems have appeared in Deep Wild Journal, Clerestory, Manzanita Review, Parks and Points, Dark Matter, Silver Birch and others. Her poetry collection This Earth Has Been Too Generous was published in 2022.
Banner image courtesy the poet.
