The Forest's Ars Poetica

From the words that cycle
like air in a closed room
inside my head, a question:
Where to keep them?
The forest, birthing stories
like it births sunny days,
but leaving those doves no place to land.

Keep the words efforted, push
my tines against the rocks, pushing
my words into them, if they're strong
enough that I don't break against the stones?
Leave little pale scratches, lasting.

Keep the words grounded, solid
in this world with the brush
of my hooves dancing
into the cool, wet earth,
letting me see them-- so concrete --
but cleaned away by the next hoofsteps?
Leave words for all of us to walk.

Keep the words brilliant as heaven, bright
in painstakingly-made berry ink. Blue as water's
jewels, sweet as honey, written on
the pale underside of leaves,
and eventually turning to rot?

Keep the words forceful, the rush
of sense and feeling, the pain
driving from my antlers into the flesh
of trees (my secret mark, outside of territory)
where the bark will scab it over one day,
but at least they will bear my scars?
Or do I

Let the words go, out
out, into the air
where perhaps the trees
shall cradle them,
the birds preserve them in their wingbeats
The tumbling leaves carry them,
the earth drink them to bring forth flowers,
But I will never know?