Deer on Mill Hill at Nightfall

[Ca ne fait rien]

But... but... if you don't call it hawthorn, it doesn't make any sense to go picking haws I'd never heard of "whitethorn" either, I actually find it pretty hard to say! Damn foreigners, eh?

I actually like the present tense, myself. It sounds almost as if you're describing a snapshot or a painting of the moment itself, with a sense of immediacy -- and the urgency of the first stanza is shattered quite violently by the deer, then completely turned around to become a very calm, visually peaceful moment.

Hi Leanne, Thanks for reading and for the comment.
One reason I used 'white-thorn, is that the place that inspired the poem is a village near to a place called Withernsea, which is a corruption over the years of White-Thorn-by the Sea. I have people who live on Haw Lane in another town, I never realised for ages that was how it was spelled

I think I will change it to hawthorn, though, because in the end, it is important not to irritate the reader with a term that is unfamiliar for a familiar thing when it is not artistically necessary.

---

Hi,
   Some of what you're writing about is foreign to me, literally. I'm a sort of uncultured, redneck, you see. 'clarted' is a new one for me, thanks for a new word. Regardless, I found this poem taking me back to my childhood, here in Alabama. I've known the weight of thick mud on my shoes as I plodded home from some chore or game quite well. And in the third part, the serendipitous sighting is made to seem all the more breath-taking because it comes so suddenly while we are busy 'gauging position.'
   I stumbled a little with L3. It seemed like it needed commas. (I see that you haven't used any punctuation other than full-stops). Just my observations as a newb

Thanks for sharing.

Hi AA
Thanks for reading and for your kind comments- I am sure you are not as uncultured as you say, I have read some of your work

'Clarted' is a Yorkshire (UK) word, I think. I did deliberate some over using it knowing that friends from other places might have difficulty with it, but in the end decided to go with it because I felt is descriptive enough (almost onomatopoeic, perhaps) to convey ts meaning. I will be interested in feedback to see if it works.
Depending on the speed of a poem, which determines line length, I often like to use line breaks alone for natural pauses rather than commas in addition. I know it does not sit well with some critics. I will have aniother look at L3 though, in view of what you say.

Many thanks again.