A Satyr Mourning a Doe

Poem - by Roger Brezina

(Early November on a county road)

It’s against the law to drive at night with headlights off

But alone on the road and miles from town

The full of the moon creates a golden, mystical realm:

A dusting of snow like baby duckling down,

The stubble of harvested fields like bristles gilt,

And the asphalt black in sharp contrast

With snow on either side allows that anything perceived

Shall disappear into one’s “educated” past.

In wonderment I drove when on the shoulder up ahead

A shape that I supposed to be a bear

Sat hunched as though he feasted on a roadkill deer.

I flicked my headlights on, and in the glare

A satyr threw his face toward mine—his cheeks and eyes

Overflowing streams of tears. He gasped a sort of bark

And to his forehead pressed the heels of his hands

Then sprang and—bolting—vanished in the dark

I know to drive at night with headlights off is wrong—

It’s reckless, dangerous, against the law—

But I saw a satyr mourning a roadkill doe—

A sight which others cannot claim they saw.

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