Deer Walk from the Thicket

from Field Stones
by Robert Kinsley

And below the bank I watch them come
one by one on this path to the edge where

they walk in single file, a quiet solemn order
as if they are children in a time of great sorrow.

I haven't moved and don't and even when they see
they don't but pause glancing straight in the face

with eyes the size of saucers, in black like the edges of stars
that move in and out, always on the edge of our seeing

the buck who halts and stares, paws the path, hooves
I stare into, the gesture a fair warning to the dark whole of us.