Winter hills

The annual cycle brings the winter snow,
Which lends the hills allure to human eyes
That, having marvelled at the summer deer
Beneath the sheltering trees, now hope to spy
Them once again when clothed in winter garb.

The exploration starts in modest guise -
A startled squirrel leaping from the road
In swift evasion of our dread approach.
The journey satisfies with charming views
And yields a plump red robin on a verge,
A pheasant, all indifference as we pass,
But nothing to betray the deer, our prey.
Then, some way distant, sits a buzzard bold,
Stock still upon a tree's dead, leafless branch,
And seems to grant us leave to stop and look
As she with gimlet gaze the ground surveys,
Then softly opens, spreads and flaps her wings,
Revealing undersides adorned in white,
On her short flight to find a better perch.

This sighting is surpassed upon a ridge
Where we are greeted by the happy chance
To watch a hunting kite on his patrol.
How long has he been quartering the slope,
As he does now, continuing to plane
And soar on patient wings, first glinting red
Against the pale blue sky, then dipping down
To blend into the matching-colored wood,
Flapping but twice to rise and wheel around,
Scanning the hill, dropping below its brow,
Rising again to recapitulate
His graceful feeding cycle, key to life,
Then peeling fast away toward the dale,
Abandoning the half-snowed, steep-banked field,

Our way leads onward through a tousled tract
Where bare-boned bushes look like coral fans
And hamlets nestle snuggly where the eye
Picks out the destination of the road.
But now the sight of walkers, boys on sleds,
Discourages insistence on our hope,
And we head homeward from the dearth of deer,
Resolved to meet them in some new attempt.

But as the road ascends and traffic glides
At unaccustomed snail pace on the ice,
Two deer appear, intent to take their course
Accross our path. The larger charges out,
Is over in a flash while wheels are braked,
And, in her mute alarm from yards away,
Reproaches us for venturing too close
And pines for her companion left behind.