The Stream That Once Seemed Mythic

The stream that once seemed mythic shimmering about the saturated green of moss speaks less clearly now of delight or else my spirit’s appetite has by imperceptible measures abandoned its audacity withering toward serenity as the deer’s corpse beside the path seen at first still grey as the maple’s bark in Winter light and even later when all softness had succumbed the arc of the neck retaining yet the implication of grace at last the flesh grown dark stretched taught upon the bone and death’s honeyed stench conspired to eclipse all splendor now occasionally one may discover beneath a briar beside a fallen branch decaying a rib or tooth that most callous within the lissome beast preserved amidst love’s slow corruption to be claimed by the curious and placed beside the shells and twisted roots a source of fascination that once participated in joy too lithe to grasp