Elegy for a Stag

Preface: This is an in class poem in which I had to write an elegy (ie, funeral poem) for one of Aesop's animals. Here is the fable:

The Stag With One Eye
A stag, blind of one eye, was grazing close to the sea shore and kept his sound eye turned towards the land, so as to be able to perceive the approach of the hounds, while the blond eye he turned towards the sea, never suspecting that any danger would threaten him from that quarter. As it fell out, however, some sailors, coasting along the shore, spied him and shot an arrow at him, by which he was mortally wounded. As he lay dying, he said to himself, "Wretch that I am! I bethought me of the dangers of the land, whence none assailed me: but I feared no peril from the sea, yet thence has come my ruin."

Also, dear reader(s), stags often symbolize pride, sacrifice, and independence.

Elegy for a Stag

The white snow falls as we walk
away from the beach.
The lighthouse shines on us
momentarily as we speak.

I remember he left to be on
his own on his second birthday.
In stag years, that’s about 12. Still
ambitious.

I knew he visited his mother
often, bringing her the best raspberries
he could find.

How she weeps.
Her head hung to the snow covered beach.
As she looks back,
his blood, though dulled, is still
too bright against the contrasting white.

When he lost his eye, he was
bleeding and laughing.
"How all will know me!
I saved my wife and the bobcat
now dead!” as he held his head high.

He was always on guard after that day.

I am always on guard too.

I see him in the sea now.
He dances on the waves and I
smile as I watch him laugh
the same laugh as the day he was mauled.

I giggle as I point to the sea and shout “I see you!”

I see you.