An early summer’s day,
Heavy with scent and golden with spilled light.
Lush foliage gleams dew-wet.
In the bright silence, a twig snaps.
Into the clearing,
A small nervous doe,
Ears alert, nose raised to the air,
Guards her fawn.
She watches it step delicately between branches,
Pulling, as it goes, on thickly clustered leaves.
Its wide eyes bright,
Tiny nose damp with dew.
Behind them, a long-neglected path
And at its edge a rusted, crumbling sign
Now slick with moss,
Forgotten, overgrown
Reads: ‘Warning: Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.”
© Anne McMaster 2016
Oh wow! What an unexpected ending, I really liked that––chilling/disturbing but so utterly simple! You developed the tension throughout the poem well, with a light hand.
Thank you so much! I was a student in the 80s when Chernobyl occurred and I still remember the reports and the concerns over fallout. But only later in the media did the full (disturbing) report come out about the flaws in the power station and mishandling of the whole affair. I’m fascinated by the idea that, no matter how we humans mess things up, mother nature forgives and rebuilds – even round a devastated area such as this.