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1 I keep placing my hands over my face, the fingertips just resting on the place where I feel my eyebrows and the fine end of a bone. My eyes are covered with the blood of my hands, my palms hold my jaws. I do this at dinner. My daughter asks Are you all right? and by a common miracle when I smile she knows I am. 2 I ask her what she will do after we eat. Sleep she tells me. But I will clean the deer skull, wash it. 3 You gave me this skull in the woods told me to bring it clean and tell the story I had told you before, about how the deer had come to me, and I said I would. 4 And I put this skull on an old newspaper, pulled the lower part of the jaws free, touched it first carefully, as if it would fall apart in my hands, the bone paper- thin, and then I saw I could scrub, so brushed the surface with steel and my fingers and more and more this surface became familiar to me. 5 I wanted to see the lines of it what it would be if it had been polished by the wind, the water, and my hands, these agents making the skull more itself. Slowly I was not afraid at all and my fingers went into the deepest holes of this thing, not afraid for myself or it, feeling suddenly as if cleaning this small fragment of earth away from the crevices inside was like loving. 6 But it was when I touched the place where the eyes were that I knew this was the shell of the deer that had lived here, this was this deer and not this deer, her home and now empty of her, but not empty of her, I knew also, not empty of her, as my hands trembled. 7 And in that instant remembered you had been in that body of that deer dying, what does it feel like to be a deer dying, the death consumes you like birth, you are nowhere else but in the center. 8 Remembering those gentle deer that watched me as I wept, or the deer that leapt as if out of my mind, when I saw speaking there in that green place the authority of the heart and the deer of the woods where my feet stood, stared at me until I whispered to her and cried at her presence. 9 And when I cleaned the skull I washed myself and sat my body half out of the water and put my hands again over my face, my fingers edging the bone over my eyes, and I thought how good this feels and this is a gesture you make. 10 Tell this story of the deer’s skull you asked quietly and so I came in my own time to put these words carefully here slowly listing each motion on this thin paper as fragile and as tough as knowledge. 1978

Before the break of day the minister was awakened by the sound of hatchets breaking open the door and windows. He ran towards the door: about twenty Indians with painted faces were coming into the house howling. Three Indians took hold of him, and bound him as he stood in his night-shirt, and began to rifle the house going into every room. As he lay, bound and helpless, he thought of his wife and children— his wife had given birth only a few weeks before— and he remembered the passage in Isaiah: “I shall go to the gates of the grave deprived of the rest of my years. . .” The Indians had taken two of his children to the door and killed them, as well as the Negro woman who helped take care of them; keeping him bound with the cord about one arm, they let him put on his clothes with the other; and let his wife dress herself, too, as well as their children left alive. When the sun was an hour high all were led out of the house for the journey of three hundred miles to Quebec— snow up to their knees. Many of the houses were now on fire; and, as they left the town, he saw his house and barn burning. At first the minister was not allowed to speak to any of his fellow captives as they marched, but on the second day he had another Indian to watch him and was allowed to speak with his wife when he overtook her and could walk with her and help her along. She told him that she was losing her strength and they must expect to part and she hoped that God would keep him alive and their children still among the living— but not a word of complaint saying that it was the will of God. When they came to a small river the captives had to wade it; the water knee-deep and the current swift. After that they had to climb a hill, almost a mountain, and the minister’s strength was almost gone when he came to the top; but he was not allowed to sit down and even unburdened of his pack. He begged the Indian in charge of him to let him go down and help his wife but the man would not let him; and he asked each of the captives as they passed about her; and heard at last that in going through the river she fell and plunged headfirst into the water; and, after that, at the foot of the hill the Indian who held her captive killed her with one stroke of his hatchet and left the body as meat for the fowls and beasts.

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness; You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs, And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory. Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be trapped by withering laurels. And in you I have found aloneness And the joy of being shunned and scorned. Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield, In your eyes I have read That to be enthroned is to be enslaved, And to be understood is to be leveled down, And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed. Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion, You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences, And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings, And urging of seas, And of mountains that burn in the night, And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul. Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, And we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous.

When the last fight is lost, the last sword broken; The last call sounded, the last order spoken; When from the field where braver hearts lie sleeping, Faint, and athirst, and blinded, I come creeping, With not one waving shred of palm to bring you, With not one splendid battle-song to sing you, O Love, in my dishonor and defeat, Your measureless compassion will be sweet.

O! say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there — O! say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave? On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream — 'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havock of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has wash'd out their foul foot-steps' pollution, No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave; And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. O! thus be it ever when freemen shall stand Between their lov'd home, and the war's desolation, Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land Praise the power that hath made and preserv'd us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto — "In God is our trust!" And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

This is about heroes, and you should know I do not mean old men with membranous snow Already patching them on hand and cheek; I mean the medaled models from the Greek On whom the air force lavishes technique Like tennis lessons and engineering toys Given at schools for preparatory boys. Say what you will, this flyer on his base Who attends airdromes is the immortal ace Training to come out of some urgent East Greater astride his apocalyptic beast Than any movie star: the new high priest. To glimpse him people will abandon cover And in his thunder die as for a lover. Pious and helmeted he lives these nones Attentive to the voices in his phones And calculating when will be the ides Through his impatience with the time he bides In long equations as the slide rule slides; There is no telling the ominous from calm In practice runs to drop a perfect bomb. Nourished and celibate, tanned, tall, erect As he navigates and crosshairs intersect, He dreams a lissome girl and highschool kiss: Physicians have no thought of mending this; The natural death is one he may not miss: Whoever said time steals without a sound? It makes a noise of bandage being wound. Little by little grows the good machine Preening equipment as pterodactyls preen; And when the night pins down the firmament He goes aloft to fly by instrument Limning the stars on graphs where light is bent: To fly in squadron and to walk in squad, This is the double-natured demigod.

What is desire But the hardwire argument given To the mind’s unstoppable mouth. Inside the braincase, it’s I Want that fills every blank. And then the hand Reaches for the pleasure The plastic snake offers. Someone says, Yes, It will all be fine in some future soon. Definitely. I’ve conjured a body In the chair before me. Be yourself, I tell it. Here memory makes you Unchangeable: that shirt, those summer pants. That beautiful face. That tragic beautiful mind. That mind’s ravenous mouth That told you, This isn’t poison At all but just what the machine needs. And then, The mouth closes on its hunger. The heart stops.

Jim just loves to garden, yes he does. He likes nothing better than to put on his little overalls and his straw hat. He says, "Let's go get those tools, Jim." But then doubt begins to set in. He says, "What is a garden, anyway?" And thoughts about a "modernistic" garden begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve. He stands in the driveway a long time. "Horticulture is a groping in the dark into the obscure and unfamiliar, kneeling before a disinterested secret, slapping it, punching it like a Chinese puzzle, birdbrained, babbling gibberish, dig and destroy, pull out and apply salt, hoe and spray, before it spreads, burn roots, where not desired, with gloved hands, poisonous, the self-sacrifice of it, the self-love, into the interior, thunderclap, excruciating, through the nose, the earsplitting necrology of it, the withering, shriveling, the handy hose holder and Persian insect powder and smut fungi, the enemies of the iris, wireworms are worse than their parents, there is no way out, flowers as big as heads, pock-marked, disfigured, blinking insolently at me, the me who so loves to garden because it prevents the heaving of the ground and the untimely death of porch furniture, and dark, murky days in a large city and the dream home under a permanent storm is also a factor to keep in mind."

Momentarily the language of description is lost what you see with your eyes is enough, for you, anyway but how to get the sense of what you saw across to another person it’s possible through the spirit in your voice when you say “it was great!” to convey what happened in that moment & it was great not only that it was terrific, & interesting too it was nice & I had a good time doing it. I had fun. You should have been there. Not only that, it was beautiful. It was inspiring.

My love is of a birth as rare As ’tis for object strange and high; It was begotten by Despair Upon Impossibility. Magnanimous Despair alone Could show me so divine a thing Where feeble Hope could ne’er have flown, But vainly flapp’d its tinsel wing. And yet I quickly might arrive Where my extended soul is fixt, But Fate does iron wedges drive, And always crowds itself betwixt. For Fate with jealous eye does see Two perfect loves, nor lets them close; Their union would her ruin be, And her tyrannic pow’r depose. And therefore her decrees of steel Us as the distant poles have plac’d, (Though love’s whole world on us doth wheel) Not by themselves to be embrac’d; Unless the giddy heaven fall, And earth some new convulsion tear; And, us to join, the world should all Be cramp’d into a planisphere. As lines, so loves oblique may well Themselves in every angle greet; But ours so truly parallel, Though infinite, can never meet. Therefore the love which us doth bind, But Fate so enviously debars, Is the conjunction of the mind, And opposition of the stars.