The grave Canadian deer
Gazed from the mountain where he stood,
High on the wall, calm, austere,
Over vast distances of wood:
Polished flooring and veneer.
What does it mean, this harsher light?
The silence and appliances’ hum;
There beat no beating wings in flight;
No hooves — resounding as they come
On mountaintops of echoing rock —
Strike like the striking of the clock.
So he stands, proud and stiff,
On the sheer pictorial cliff,
High above the woolen river
And the woven valleys deep;
When curtains flutter, then a quiver
Runs through the tapestry —
A shiver:
Wind, or the beginning of a leap.