Among the dark trees are deer and a fog glowing
close to earth
only shoulders and heads are visible as disembodied
they drift
lit tapers in the fog-light
and branches allow them passage through arteries
of instinct and memory
return them to Oligocene forests
where hoof-beats are blood murmurs above
stones and rivers
and antlers are the calcium of the air.
Note: The earliest fossil records of deer are found
in the Oligocene epoch (extending from circa 33.9 million
to 23 million years before the present).
Autumn Richardson is a Canadian poet, editor and publisher whose work focuses on ethnography, botany, ecology and animism. In 2009 she formed Corbel Stone Press with UK artist Richard Skelton, with whom she has collaborated extensively. Her poetry, translations and essays have appeared in literary journals throughout Canada and the UK. Her latest work, Heart of Winter, a collection of assemblage-poems based upon the journals of ethnographer Knud Rasmussen, will be published in summer 2015. @Corbel_Stone