On this back road the land has the juice taken out of it: stump fences surround nothing worth their tearing down by a deserted filling station a Veedol sign, the rusted hulk of a Frazer, "live bait" on battered tin. A barn with half a tobacco ad owns the greenness of a manure pile a half-moon on a privy door a rope swinging from an elm. A collapsed henhouse, a pump with the handle up the orchard with wild tangled branches. ̺ ̺ ̺ In the far corner of the pasture, in the shadow of the woodlot a herd of twenty deer: three bucks are showing off - they jump in turn across the fence, flanks arch and twist to get higher in the twilight as the last light filters through the woods. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ALIEN WOMEN; SONGKHLA, THAILAND by KAREN SWENSON UPON BEN JONSON [JOHNSON] by ROBERT HERRICK A SUN-DAY HYMN [OR LAMENT] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES THE COLLAR-BONE OF A HARE by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS LOVE IS BEST by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |