The Elk

two poems

THE ELK

I heard him take his running in the wood,

And hooves strike winter from a buried bell:

And where long branches hung with ice,

Six antlers sprang. Before the moon

Another six: and hexed between the sacred pines

He stood, legs set on cold again:

And fled, his keen-cloved feet afire,

His head twelve-tined like a running year.