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.