Rollie Lynn Riggs - The Deer
It is a pool of shadow close and blue; The slant ray of the sun is a golden javelin to run it through But not to slay. Three tan deer are nimbly at the cool Grass nibbling. Their sides are thin, Each liquid eye a little pool For javelin.
Lynn Riggs is perhaps best known for writing the play Green Grow the Lilacs, which would be adapted by Rodgers and Hammerstein into Oklahoma! Before dedicating himself a playwright, Riggs spent a number of years with poetry. He has a wonderful collection of cinquains and near cinquains (the invention of Adelaide Crapsey) that describe the scene at the Santo Domingo Corn Dance. They are really simple and beautiful, and the form lends itself to the quick motions of the dance.
This piece is a bit longer, but still plays with form in an interesting way. It follows the same general thread of very long lines giving way to dangling feet at the end, making the conclusion feel a bit abrupt on the page and in the mouth.
The first stanza has an AA rhyme up front, along with a slant rhyme with blue. The song-like start makes the final line stand out even more, highlighting that the way the sun cuts through the shade is just a non-threatening image.
The second stanza brings back the slant, repeating pool. Similarly, it is tied to the first stanza through the repetition of javelin. But now there is ambiguity. The scene before was peaceful and the sun was disrupting the peace slightly. This is less peaceful. “Their sides are thin,” Riggs tells us, disrupting the calm with an implication of scarcity and hunger.
The pool is brought back, but now it represents the eyes of the deer rather than the shadow they are standing in. The javelin returns and though it may still refer to the light and the way the eye might catch it, the image becomes more threatening and brings to mind the notion of the hunt. A sense of danger forever hiding in the calm, hunger forever hiding in the bounty. A reminder that within nature, there is always the threat of man.