Song of the Autumn Wilderwoods

By Hunter Thomas

I set myself beside a fire,

Caressed by autumn breeze.

The orange of the flame

Paired with the hue of the red maple leaves.

They fluttered and tumbled downward,

Descending from the trees.

There I sat, idly,

Watching whitetails before the winter freeze.

This was the firepit that I built

When I was but fifteen.

These were the rocks that

I had dragged from out within the ravine.

The stones, rounded and smoothed over,

With fossils in between,

Surrounded the flame

That flickered against all the dying green.

There I sat beside the flaming

Logs that sizzed in my ear.

Then I looked to it.

A small, young, and infantile white-tailed deer.

The yearling had sprouted antlers

And I heard him draw near,

Hoof stepped upon a leaf,

A crunch resonating for me to hear.

The deer stood there, perfectly still,

Not unlike a wood stork,

But it was not me

The deer looked to, but a rank, rotting corpse.

I watched this sorrowful young buck

Mourning where the path forks.

Nudging the body

Hideous, departed, mangled, and warped.

Before the firepit, I sat,

Hearing the cawing crow,

Deer beside the corpse

Upon which the moss and the mold did grow.

The deceased deer, collapsed on turf,

Found in a dead meadow.

I sat alone there,

Watching the grim buck in the fire-glow.

Hunter Thomas is a Pennsylvania-based writer and a graduate of East Stroudsburg University. At ESU, they were editor-in-chief of Calliope Literary Magazine and winner of the Leah Gumpper '01 Memorial Poetry Annual Scholarship for 2022/2023, as well as the EAPSU Outstanding English Major Award for 2022-2023. They are currently a staff poet at Dalika Magazine. In their spare time, they enjoy craft beer and rock 'n' roll.