by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator
Today's selection is "The Buck in the Snow" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, an exceptional poet of the early twentieth century. This poem was taken from the poet's 1928 collection of the same name. I am drawn to it because of the the realistic subject - life and death in the snow - and the strength of the poet's captivating words. It could easily be a companion piece to Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," a poem that was featured in this space several weeks ago. I've probably been in the desert too long: sand is ubiquitous, and jeez Louise do I miss the snow!
The Buck in the Snow
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow,
Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered
buck and his doe
Standing in the apple-orchard? I saw them. I saw them
suddenly go,
Tails up, with long leaps lovely and slow,
Over the stone-wall into the wood of hemlocks bowed
with snow.
Now lies he here, his wild blood scalding the snow.
How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees,
bringing to his antlers
The buck in the snow.
How strange a thing, -- a mile away by now, it may be,
Under the heavy hemlocks that as the moments pass
Shift their loads a little, letting fall a feather of snow --
Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe.
1 comment:
Seems I recall a discussion in Dr. Mary Rose Sweeney class where this final stanza was produced, by another student, as anciallary evidence. The point being driven home was that it is most always the woman who gets left alone.
God I miss the days of wild eyed female ferver! Twenty years after the E.R.A. should have passed we get Lilly Ledbetter instead.
Slim pickings indeed.
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