A Gaze Met

A Gaze Met

A Gaze Met

In a sunlit clearing of Winter’s wood
a gentle doe saunters delicately upon the frostbitten grass.
The brittle swords bend and crack beneath her weight,
retreating their endless battle against the sky.

Her eyes dart past the towering timbers
as though she expects them to lash out in fury.
She shakes the laden snow from her chestnut fur
and watches her tepid breath become an apparition.

Stilled in the shadows of the greatest tree,
silently melting amidst myriad foliage,
one lone pipe stares with a stolid cyclops eye,
its unblinking gaze fixed on the clearing, waiting.

By the will of a hidden hand, the unseen arbiter
readies his instrument to drop its maleficent retribution.
Then quietly, another grove of brush reveals a delicate fawn.
She swiftly glides to heel at her mother’s side.

The doe gently caresses her daughter fawn,
keeping her close in matriarchal love as the fawn gazes ‘round.
From a dull beating heart recondite within the forest
eyes are met across the once untainted clearing.

Birds flee in droves from the forest canopy,
the cyclops eye leaks its languid smoke,
the doe is gone in frightened flight,
but the fawn drops like a stone: a victim of love.