Picking Blueberries, Austerlitz, NewYork, 1957

Once, in summer,
    in the blueberries,
        I fell asleep, and woke
            when a deer stumbled against me.

I guess
    she was so busy with her own happiness
        she had grown careless
            and was just wandering along

listening
    to the wind as she leaned down
        to lip up the sweetness.
            So, there we were

with nothing between us
    but a few leaves, and the wind’s
        glossy voice
            shouting instructions.

The deer
    backed away finally
        and flung up her white tail
            and went floating off toward the trees—

but the moment before she did that
    was so wide and so deep
        it has lasted to this day;
            I have only to think of her—

the flower of her amazement
    and the stalled breath of her curiosity,
        and even the damp touch of her solicitude
            before she took flight—

to be absent again from this world
    and alive, again, in another,
        for thirty years
            sleepy and amazed,

rising out of the rough weeds,
    listening and looking.
        Beautiful girl,
            where are you?