The Prince and the Stag

The Prince and the Stag

The doomed prince’s hair (doomed by his uncle
Whose cold eyes eye his dead father’s throne) 
Like a meadow where deer have lain sleeping,
The grass folded down. The rest of the herd
Has left the wounded stag, the best of them,
To bleed out. His eyes have a kind of dust
On them, like the marbles of a boy who, 
Dead, haven’t been touched in years. Through the woods
That ring the meadow round, the sun either
Sinks or rises. Because this poem is concerned
Only with this moment, we cannot say whether
It is dawn or dusk that finds the stag here.
It was the prince who, out hunting  shot him
Badly. He isn’t dying from the wound 
So much as he is from the prince’s indolence
If you were to stand where I do (I stand 
In the vantage point of the poem), you too 
Would think the stag’s great gray-green antlers look
Like transplanted saplings that didn’t take.
Someone really ought to pour some water 
On his head, make them leaf out like laughter
(I can’t do it, can’t interfere). Meanwhile
In the bedchamber, let in by the guards,
His uncle raises the ax, and know that
It will be a killing blow. Know too that
It is about to get a lot lighter or a lot darker.