Floodlights

March 4 2015

Motion-tripped.

Sometimes snow, blowing horizontal.
That wet clumpy stuff
that sticks to the shovel
and throws you off.

Sometimes hail, or heavy rain.
Its ghostly brightness
flattening terrain, sharpening shadows,
heightening stillness

unreality.

And sometimes deer, who come to graze.
Tempted
by my overgrown lawn
with its bald patch, crab grass
metastatic weeds.
By the hostas
which have out-lasted my neglect,
but are no match
for appetite.

I see them, in the stark white light
like a frozen tableau
of vigilance,
stock-still, heads raised.
They are coiled springs, on hair-trigger legs
tendons thick as cables.

Brown eyes glint
like deep reflecting pools,
blinded by the glare
and unaware
they're being watched.
How unnatural, this must seem,
illuminated
like targets
in the dark of night.
But they persist, feeding skittishly,
the leggy grass rich
with chlorophyll.

Until an ear twitches, and they're gone,
vanish
like a switch, flicked off.

And later on
bats, bugs, moths
swarming the light's
hot incandescence;
like acolytes, to their god
mad with faith.

So in high summer
the place can be flooded
all night long,
when the air vibrates with life

and motion trips.
When the cool of night
is all too brief,
darkness lifts
and nothing sleeps.



Another deer poem. I'm sure that by now these outnumber the dogs ;-)

This all started when I flicked on one of my floodlights and it immediately blew -- with an intense white flash and a popping thunk. I thought how they made everything look: that ghostly light, the flattening and shadows. And I pictured the deer, frozen as if in strobes. Which is how the poem moved so abruptly from now into summer (and hence the hail, and heavy rain to ease the transition).

Pretty much the kind of descriptive poem I favour: no profound themes, no propulsive narrative arc. I'm not sure how well this keeps a reader's interest. But I have to suppose if they're fun to write, they're also rewarding to read.