Alan Dugan

“Imagine that the fast life of a bird
sang in the branches of the cold
cast-off antlers of a stag
and lit the points of bone
with noises like St. Elmo’s fire.
Worn, those antlers were
an outer counterweight,
extravagant in air and poised
against a branching need
drumming in the red inside
the arteries or antlers of the heart.
That was the balance that allowed
the stag’s head’s limber rise,
and might have been the gift
the temporary, reed-boned bird
sang air about: abundance,
rank beyond the need.”
― Alan Dugan, Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry