The White Stag

The following poem is based on a short story I wrote for an anthology I am doing to be published hopefully sometime in 2013 along with a long running project that should have been finished a long time ago; a novel set in the Scottish Highlands about murder, conspiracy and the supernatural. It’s my first novel and I am writing in effect two at once with another two in progress. Anyway, enough of the waffle and on with the poem…

Searching for something is he
something he hopes to set him free
From this world of corruption and hate
he hopes to find his eternal fate

Apart from this world he believes
never belonged in towns or cities
So off he walks into the mountain air
that’s where he belongs, just there!

Sheep bleat nearby
as overhead a bird does cry
And the river rushes past in a roar
and behind in the woods shuffles a boar

It’s there that the man goes
seeking something to free his ghosts
Maybe then his spirit will calm
as he bows his head in his palms

And there he is amongst the trees
another world he’s entered he believes
Hoping here answers to be found
for otherwise in the city he’ll drown

He breathes in and out and sits awhile
thinking of his past in many miles
when suddenly a crunch of broken twigs
as birds fly off scared by something big

And then he sees it, a ghost of white
it’s antlers huge, such a site
It turns to look at him, eyeing him up
as the man stays stock-still, his blood does rush

Then the white stag moves to him
like a wraith, as if gliding
It’s almost eye to eye now
nothing stirs, not a sound

It’s antlers almost encircle the man
but it’s the eyes that still his hand
For in them he sees all and more
his life entirely at their core

He also sees his death and beyond
and other wonders he absorbs
In that instant he knows all will be fine
for the white stag has shown him all of time

Whatever he does now, he’ll live again
so no need to fear or to pretend
As he watches the majestic stag bound away
he knows he’ll see differently now everyday