Starfall

My apologies, once again, for disruptions to Myth & Moor's publishing schedule -- due first to the usual heath issues, and more recently to the sudden death of my youngest brother. He died under distressing circumstances, so I haven't known quite what to say about it. I'll let poetry speak for me instead. Keith was loved by many, and left us too soon. I wish you peace, Little Bro.

Vert
by Catherine Staples

As in green, vert, a royal demesne     
stocked with deer. Invert as in tipped
as a snow globe, going nowhere in circles
but not lost, not bereft as the wood
without deer, waiting for the white antlered
buck, or his does, or any slim yearling
to step along the berm, return. Vertigo
as in whirling round, swimming in the head,
unanchored by the long spring,
the horse cantering, the meadow dropping
like an elevator into the earth, falling
like Persephone through a crevice, a swiveling
crack, a loose screw, a lost way. Disordered
as in death lasts, my brother���s not coming back.
The spin of it continuous as in looking down
from height, and then it stops, the spinning
just slows, a chariot wheel stilled in grass.
The world is the same, but it isn���t. The tipped
views of trees when hanging from your knees.
The deer in twos and threes watching.

Pictures: "Starfall" by Flora McLachlan, an illustration for the fairy tale "Brother & Sister" by Johnny B. Gruelle (1880-1938), two white-tailed deer, a roe buck, and "The Sleeping Heart of Winter" by Catherine Hyde.

Words: The poem first appeared in Poetry magazine (October 2015); all rights reserved by the author.