The Girl and the Stag

29 October 2025

https://poems.culturing.net/2025/10/the-girl-and-the-stag/

She never did answer, preferring instead
her most ponderous silence, the veil of Nothing incarnate.
A pity, but maybe in time she'd grow wise
and decide how to speak, how to utter unutterable truths.
As a matter of symbols she surely could master this too,
but the mapping of symbols to meaning was never the issue.
The meaning itself still eludes her, flees like a stag
in the lost wood, the one hostile to girls far from home.
Can she master it? Can she at last find herself
with feet planted, at home in a clearing carved out
by the call of her voice, her own voice, which so startles the wood
that all pauses? The stag returns curious, gazing intently, unsure
but amazed by her sound. He bows and their eyes meet.