Keith Murray recalls his youthful confrontation with a red deer in the Highlands, in this sample from his newly published collection, Stork Skeleton (Rain Poetry Books, £10). Aberdeen-based Mr Murray, who works in advertising, is a long-standing contributor to the poetry space, and many of the poems in his book have appeared here.
BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN
Where are you now Red Deer
who once held a blue mountain
fixed in your antlers like a gem,
where did you take off to in a flame
over the green hill that day in the highlands,
your quiet quick respectful footfalls
vanishing so long ago;
I return to the spot forty years on,
the diamond that dislodged itself from your crown
still jags the sky with ice
and I follow your ghostly trail
listening for your cultured breath,
your timid elegance
across the dark green grass,
wait for you to return to me
as I stand hand in pockets
of my new Harris Tweed,
but you do not come,
there is only the sound of the wind,
the far off calls of gulls,
I cup my hands,
hold the peak of treasure that will never die
Then let it go as I too leave never to return. . .
Perhaps we had everything we desired back then
when in a fleeting moment
I encountered your perfection
and you glimpsed my youth.
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