Fawn

By Mary Barnard 1909–2001 Mary Barnard

Out of a high meadow where flowers

bloom above cloud, come down;

pursue me with reasons for smiling without malice.

Bring mimic pride like that of the seedling fir,

surprise in the perfect leg-stems

and queries unstirred by recognition or fear

pooled in the deep eyes.

Come down by regions where rocks

lift through the hot haze of pain;

down landscapes darkened, crossed

by the rift of death-shock; place print

of a neat hoof on trampled ground

where not one leaf or root

remains unbitten; but come down

always, accompany me to the morass

of the decaying mind. There

we’ll share one rotted stump between us.

Mary Barnard, “Fawn” from Collected Poems (Portland: Breitenbush, 1979). Used by permission of the Estate of Mary Barnard.

Source: The Collected Poems of Mary Barnard (Breitenbush, 1979)

Biography

Mary Barnard was born in Vancouver, Washington and attended Reed College where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1932. Her works include A Few Poems (1952), The Mythmakers (1966), Three Fables (1975) and Nantucket Genesis: The Tale of My Tribe (1988). She was awarded Poetry Magazine’s Levinson Award in 1935, the Elliston award for her book Collected Poems (1979), the Western States Book Award in 1986 for her book Time and . . .

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