Bright Shadow

High on the white-peaked horizon

Antlers encircling the misted moon

Dark king of winter and the night

The elk stands alone

In the emptiness

Of the unknown

Between time that has gone

And time that’s yet to be.

Within his soul, gleams the vision

Of the mystical one

Who glides over glades of stars and through the sky-gate

On clear warm arctic nights

The one whose breath is the falling snow

Whose shining head is the moon

Whose eyes are the fire within the northern lights

The one whose magic hooves slip silently unseen

Between

Time’s call and chiming echo.

The elk stands alone.

And within his eyes the bright

Shadow of eternity

Sheds peace.  And all the while the fir trees wait

And grow

Silver and still, in the darkness.

Written around 1995

Photo: MIWS 16 / Dreamstime.com / Elk in the Rocky Mountains National Park