Mystic Encounter

by John M. Freckleton

I saw

A rising slope of hill

Adorned in white of newly fallen snow,

And not a mark upon its clean expanse

Except contrasting spruces, darkly green,

Dispersed across the hill in twos and threes,

Ascending up the vastness of the icy mountain

Soaring steeply into winter’s cold and cloudless sky;

And over all the land the light was faintly blue.

A flock of sparrows

Swirled about my head

And raced into the darkness of a grove of trees.

Beyond, and high upon the hill,

A young doe deer

Advanced with dainty dancing,

Stepping lightly

Through the snow-filled oak brush

Till she paused beyond the trees,

And, poised within a universe of white,

She gazed a breathless while at me.