Back Issue Winter 2004-05

SWAMP DEER

 

"The deer went in the swamp. I’m

        sure of it." he said.

But I could see he was a native

        and as such perhaps

Knew better. So I walked on

        up the ridges through

The swirling, noisy oak leaves,

        and later on that morning

Saw and shot one of the deer

        "that went in the swamp."

I also saw the foot-of-the-mountain

        sage walking along quite fast

And, oh, he tried to act surprised

        when he saw what I was dragging past.

Maybe you can tell me, boy, just

        which way they’d go?

"The deer went in the swamp,

        I’m sure of it, I said.

 

Charles Churchill

Charlie is from Maine, just over the border in Porter. At present he is living in New Hampshire.