Stag

Emerged from woodland,

on heathered hagg, a red stag 

discards his solitude, bears

his banner of vestigial enchantment,

to meet the skirmishes of Autumn.

A ruminant of goosegrass 

and dogwood, of the understory,

he entreats the wind and

the wind answers.

Each beast  is thickened, moss tined;

a prelude to branches of oak

that clatter, bone upon bone, 

for the gamble of an aged hart,

lambent in the lowering light. 
 

But I have no love 

for war or glory when the present

so often steals from the past,

until history, itself, seems empty 

in the self-defeat of repetition.

There are bridges built with myth

between Cernunnos and 

the shapeshifting of St Patrick

in flight - the quarry of an older tale.

Here, too, an earthly Kármán line

is drawn between now and then,

tame and wild, yet still, every man

may posture and bellow,

as I nurse my anguishes

as if they were battle scars,

as if they were the only savage justice

of my yesterdays, where

any comprehension of my being

resides, how I, too, beseech the wind

and the wind abides. 
 

Painting is from here: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stag_at_Echo_Rock_-_SAAM_-_DSC00823.JPG Also on Twitter: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Eugen.jpg and https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colonel_Smith_Grasping_the_Hind_Legs_of_a_Stag.jpg

And if it's helpful, the Kármán line is an imaginary boundary between the atmosphere of earth and space.