Antlers

This one’s limping and cautious crossing
The road these evenings in tourist town.
Someone must have already nicked him,

But his antlers are magnificent,
And he grew up here, free from hunters,
Never to see a wolf in his life,

So, aside from the tourist traffic
And maybe an opportunistic
Coyote or desperate cougar,

He’s got a chance to get through winter,
Despite whatever’s causing his limp.
The antlers will fall off soon enough.

If he lives and recovers his gait,
The next rack will be as impressive,
Will look like the same set of antlers

On the same deer, although they won’t be.
Well, that’s the way anything comes back,
The new past resembling some old past

So much you think it’s either returned
Or never left, when there’s nothing left
But likenesses, which aren’t things, which last.