Actaeon

“A deer is at my feeder”:

The first words I see

This morning.

I know the deer:

He has traveled from a pellucid spring

Across the snow-covered mountains

Of sleeping imagination

Through fields

Thick with the tall grasses of hope

Across swift-moving rivers of endless work

That nevertheless pool around 

The fallen stars of the Little Dipper

To the intersection of our lives

In the soft and warm sand

Pulled by time into the sea

To stand alone, vast and open and sunny.

Will he drink from your birdbath?

I wonder.

I watch the fearless hunter Actaeon

In my imagination.

I watch Artemis the hunter.

“She stomped her feet in warning.

She turned on the security lights.”

Stay away, her falling feet

Demanded.  

You watched.

We watch.

Who is the hunter?

The hunted?

Naked beauty--all power and grace.

Earth vibrates under your footfall.

We will watch.

Let the dogs come.