Glenkiln

by Tom Pow

One deer, then another,
flushed out by my presence,
before I can even spot

what they were doing
before me, cross half a field
in four bounds and take

a fence as tall as myself —
the second a split moment
after the first; a mirror

letting me catch how
the forelegs tuck up
to their chests and the back legs

extend as power lends
itself to flight, if flight
can be a brief hanging

in air of elegance
and purpose. For some time
before the deer, I’d felt —

in the warmth of spring,
in the gentle climb
between fields, a space

opening up in me —
only that, nothing more,
not even whether it might be

a window or a door.
Something that suggested
a paying of attention;

a seeing what the tide
might bring in — at the top
of the glen, two kestrels

drawing wheels in the blue;
the water I carry, cold yet,
bearing a faint trace of home.