Posted by Kochanie
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Sun, 2008-12-21 04:55
Image: Deer on Lake St. Regis at Night, from the Digital Gallery of the New York Public Library
Then the deer stepped from the woods. It walked from the shadows under the trees into a clear space. Antlers sprang from its brow, each with five or six tines. From the antlers, from each tine, green leaves were growing, as if from the branches of a tree.
The deer stood without moving, brutish and graceful as deer alive in the daylight, except that its heavy, elaborate head was carrying, upon the usual curvatures of horn, these branches, this fountain of leaves.
Then it turned and vanished. In shyness, perhaps. Or simply because we get no more than such dreamy chances to look upon the real world. The great door opens a crack, a hint of the truth is given—so bright it is almost a death, a joy we can’t bear—and then it is gone.
December from White Pine: Poems and Prose Poems by Mary Oliver
Image details can be found here.
Submitted by 2590 (not verified) on Sat, 2008-12-27 12:29.
So beautiful, but of course I scanned it quickly looking for something sexy. "Brutish and graceful" - yep, that'll do....