I Know, I Remember, But How Can I Help You

The northern lights.         I wouldn’t have noticed them if the deer hadn’t told me a doe         her coat of pearls         her glowing hoofs proud and inquisitive eager for my appraisal and I went out into the night with electrical steps but with my head held also proud to share the animal’s fear and see what I had seen before a sky flaring and spectral greenish waves and ribbons and the snow         under strange light         tossing in the pasture like a storming ocean caught by a flaring beacon. The deer stands away from me         not far there among bare black apple trees a presence I no longer see. We are proud to be afraid proud to share the silent magnetic storm that destroys the stars and flickers around our heads like the saints’ cold spiritual agonies of old. I remember         but without the sense         other light-storms cold memories discursive and philosophical in my mind’s burden and the deer remembers nothing. We move our feet         crunching bitter snow         while the storm crashes like god-wars down the east we shake the sparks from our eyes we quiver inside our shocked fur we search for each other in the apple thicket— a glimpse, an acknowledgment it is enough and never enough— we toss our heads         and say good night moving away on bitter bitter snow.