Pale Rider

I found her beneath the fruiting honeysuckle,

The fallen doe. The hunter had cut her legs off,

And because the doe was so small, killed out of season,

The leg wounds looked huge, like neck wounds.

I found her in summer and then I forgot about her.

But many months later, on a day of cold rain,

And then Unfallen snow, when I was tired because

I had not slept, and because I was tired, anxious,

I walked back to the grotto in the oldest part of the woods.

It is a dark unsettling place and I am drawn to it.

No sun finds its way through the trees, even in winter,

And, as if the place were cursed, birds pass through

Quickly or not at all, and they will not sing. Dusk

Had come early. The steep hill rose up black

Above the cave’s blue walls, and from the water

Pooled on the rocks, the mist was already rising.

I could feel it before I saw it, stirring like the clouds

Of insects that sift through the swales in summer.

And then the mist took on weight and turned silver.

And then it grew heavier still and turned white.

I was having trouble seeing. I heard the call of a night bird,

Far off, perishable, and from the branches, high

And low, water dripped, a dull repeating sound,

Like the sound of many mute people flicking one

Finger slow and hard against their palms. And then

The sound fell off, and the cold mist turned warm,

As if it were coming not from the pools of water

But from deep within the ground, and in the mist

I smelled flowers. And I was confused. I thought

For a moment it must be summer and not winter,

And that I would see, if the mist suddenly thinned,

Not a stripped thorn, clinging to the grotto’s rim,

But a blooming honeysuckle bush. I could taste

The honeysuckle on my tongue, a taste that was faint

At first, slightly rancid. But as the mist grew thicker

And thicker, golden now, softly vibrating, the taste

Grew stronger, and more sweet, like the taste of ether,

Until it seemed as if I were standing in a cloud,

Or a hive. I looked up: whiteness, milky, lit from within,

And, like mother-of-pearl, something, not clear, a shape,

The shape of an owl or a snowy hawk, hanging

Perfectly still, the way a hawk will hang for hours

In a stiff wind, but there was no wind. And the shape

Was not an owl, nor a hawk, but a shape my mind

At first resisted, the way my mind sometimes refuses

To make sense of words that are perfectly clear,

Simple words, spoken slowly and with great care,

Because the words are so improbable, or will tell me,

Good or bad, the thing I most wish not to hear,

“He is dead,” say, or, “Take up your bed and walk.”

Below that shape I stood, a pointed shape, golden,

Not a hawk, nor a boot, nor a silk hat made of mist

Yet still somehow distinguishable from the mist,

But something else, until my mind gave in to my eyes,

And the thing I had not wanted to see, or thought

I could not see, hung suspended above me, a face,

The head on its long neck of the doe I had found

Beneath the honeysuckle—such a frail creature,

Too small to have been killed, so small the hunter

Could have carried her home on his back had he so desired,

But he had not so desired. And I knew it was that doe,

Though I cannot say how I knew, her narrow face small

And dark and shining, until the mist closed over it,

And it was gone. And then, almost at once, the face

Appeared in another place, and again the mist closed,

And again the face came back, as in a game,

Until I saw that the face was not one but two,

Not two faces, but four, a flock of small deer, but no,

Not a flock, and again my mind refused the shape

Taking on weight above me, four heads on four long necks,

Attached to one legless body, one golden swollen body

That smelled of fallen fruit splitting in the sun and shone

The way an image from a dream will darkly shine,

Floating up from childhood, a hand holding out

A piece of torn bread that turns for no reason

Into a block of honeycomb filled not with honey

But with a marbled black and red substance,

Dense and sweet as charred flesh. She shone

The doe, her four heads, held high and perfectly still,

Facing in four different directions. And then I saw

Something else, darker, protruding from her breast.

It was a fifth neck and head, hanging upside down

In front, like the useless third leg of Siamese twins

Joined at the torso that hangs out of the spine,

And is amputated at birth, or like the water-darkened

Rudder of a ship. I heard the hot air sucking in and out

Of the doe’s many nostrils, in and out. The mist

Grew darker, and I felt afraid, for I knew even before

My eyes confirmed it, that the fifth head was not

The doe’s head at all, as I had thought, but the head

Of a grown child that the doe was trying to deliver

From her breast, and I knew that the child would never

Be born, but must ride always with her, his body

Embedded in hers, his head up to the sky. I wanted

To reach up and touch that head. But I did not do so.

I kept thinking that the doe would disappear, or that

She would say something, that her four mouths, five,

Would open and she would speak, but she did not disappear,

And she did not speak. A doe will never speak.

She will bark or cry out like a child if alarmed, but she

Will not speak. The mist smelled of warm milk,

And the doe’s muteness grew loud, and louder still,

Until it was as dizzying as the sound of many trumpets

Blowing a single everlasting note. And I thought

Of the tongue, of how it is a wound, a pool of blood,

And of how you should bind a wound. And I thought

Of the earth covered with poor forked creatures

Walking around with broken faces, their substance

Pouring out in the form of words. And I thought of how

The mist would thicken further until it thinned,

All at once, to nothing, in the night air that smelled

Of sewage and poor man’s roses, and of how the sound

Of the water dripping from the trees would return,

Tinnier, less insistent, as the water grew colder.

And I knew that soon on the high hill above the grotto

The fine dry snow would start to fall, and the field

Would draw silence to itself, and then as the air

Grew soft, the dry snow would turn to wet snow,

And the wet snow would lie heavy against the earth,

And the silence would multiply, a dark mass of pulp

And wings stirring above a darker bed, until nothing

Was recognizable to itself, and things were as if dead,

Wrapped in sheets and soaked in spices and oil, and death

A great mercy. And the snow seemed to hiss softly,

Or the falling mist hissed softly, or the water sliding

Down the stones, and the doe’s form became more ghostly—

Pale rider, lost in the woods where I was lost. And I stood

In the dark until I closed my eyes. And then I stood no more.