Vision without action is a daydream
Action without vision is a nightmare - Japanese proverb
Cobwebs fall from my eyes
Brushed there by the trees
As I emerge from the river,
Shivering in the breeze.
Into ancient forest
Sinking into peat,
Leaves dance down
Mulching at my feet,
Lazy light swells and pulses
Making me yearn for rest,
My swollen eyelids
Tick with tiredness,
I seek a second magpie
Where murderous corvids roost,
I count seven as they
Startled, suddenly swoop.
Beech nuts snap their furry jaws
Blood berries float in tangled limbs,
In this terraced valley
Where river slices thin.
Then in a glade I see him
White stag - statue-bold,
With graceful twist of neck,
Pink eyes locked in hold.
Framed briefly in papery birch,
Then startles and I chase
As if in medieval hunt
In breathless pursuit we race
Until under solitary ash tree
Beneath the boughs he stops,
Burnt branches on the right -
The left, black buds stripped off.
My chest beats, rise and fall,
Condensed clouds evaporate
and billow into fuller mist,
Where whispering woods aspirate.
I sooth the charred bark,
And reach through the haze
To grasp the final fruit
Before the end of days.
Rotten, it dissolves in my hand,
Turning to dust as if from sand
Drifting down to iron earth
Kissing fairy rings below,
Where mycelium seeks truth
Though carrion circles grow.
I cannot go any farther
As if hidden rubicon,
I turn to ask directions
but my gentle stag has gone.
So I return to clear water,
Thirsting for purer mind.
How I long for lucid vision.
But I am blind.
Suzanne Fairless-Aitken - December 2019
