First 5 Minute Poem: Dead Deer

Sam has been thinking about adding "5 minute poems" to the blog. I think it is a great idea except I don't write too many poems. Maybe I'll dust off some my old ones or maybe I'll get inspired to write some new ones. Anyway, I like this one that Sam wrote.

Dead Deer

I had walked around it for months

Not looking at it

Avoiding the smell

It had died right on the trail

Unlike the ones that had died in the grass, this one was

Slowly melting away

The birds had not found it

“They must have smelled it” he said

But they would not come into the trees

So instead of a sky burial, this one was turning

into the ground on which it lay.

Its frame only a shell

with holes in it.

Its bones were starting to show.

It was cold now, January,

and it no longer smelled.

I talked my eyes into looking.

In that half-light of the woods in winter,

I could only barely make out where the skin ended

and the earth began. It’s neck was arched,

head towards the tree.

Its dying pose.

(Sam)

January 2008