It was the shadow of the deer on the moon-hard slope
that you saw: not death: but death was there
with the breaking twig, in the dark; with the sounds that groped
through the blind wood; with the step sourceless as air,
and running. Though death was there
it was not this you saw but a shadow
fox-fire glistened, perhaps, in the rotten log.
But death was there in the cold blue-porcelain meadow;
it flew with the bat, it crept with the fog,
it was there in the brush, crouching behind the log.
It was a shadow you saw, for death is the thing not seen, no never
in sun or moon; it is a faceless thing, it has no breath.
Construe this how you will. Run, run forever
from what you saw; but you saw. It was not death.
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