The Great Intangible

Good-bye to you, my buck of red fox hide, The autumn wars have taken yet another, I marvel at the naked bones of pride That say you made good hunting, O, my brother. There are no songs for we of antlered tongue Except the wind-horn and its lonely blowing. A strangely austere sound for one so young, But you shall have white blankets at its going. Salute you deer that pass with icy breath. Though you will never run as stags together. The great intangible that men call death Has come to one of us with woodsmoke weather.