Four Pheasants

Where the road curves sharp left, it dips,
and after heavy rain, a glisten of wet —
what might be the bed of an old stream or
an overflowing spring — marks the surface.
The water sinks into the dark earth
deepened by centuries of rotting leaves
and decomposing creatures, and the trees arch.
Their top branches meet above the gap.

When the leaves are russet and gold, the wet road,
fiftully lit by weak sunlight filtered through
interlaced twigs, seems to lead somewhere important.
From a bank of bronze and copper bracken,
dew-beaded, frost-softened, four pheasants
emerge, one behind the next, and stalk across.

Copyright © 2003 Ruth Fainlight All rights reserved
from Burning Wire
Bloodaxe Books / Dufour Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission