WHITE DEER
that night we’re
lying in our beds
and I’m not talking to Cora
but she’s yakking and yakking
at me
I already had to listen to
a lecture about water
a lecture about my responsibilities
a lecture about strangers
a lecture about thinking about Cora
and I’m tired of thinking about Cora
so I don’t answer
she’s jabbering on and on
and I’m not listening and
shove my head under my pillow
but she climbs the ladder to my bunk
she lifts the pillow
money! she says
I’m talking about money
so listen
she tells me her business plan
for us to take pictures
of the beach and Mount Fuji
of temples and shrines
with her stuffed squirrel
named Gray in each photo
get it? she says
it’s like Gray
is a tourist
visiting Japan
taking a trip around Kamakura
and this whole area
I lift the pillow
all the way off my head
and stare at her
and what exactly will we
do with these pictures of Gray?
sell them!
make postcards!
make folders!
I groan
how? and why?
and WHO would want pictures
of a stuffed squirrel? I say
I don’t know!
YOU think of that—
I thought up the product
YOU do the marketing
right I tell her
and finally
she climbs down the ladder
and leaves me alone
the typhoon wakes us both
in the middle of the night
with wind that screams and
gusts that hit with such force
they make the house shudder
in between gusts
there’s a steady roar
which I finally realize
is the ocean
way down the hill
as loud as if it’s
outside our door
Cora comes up to my bunk
and in the typhoon night
things rattle, crash
smash, slam
and groan
finally we take our pillows
into Mom and Dad’s room
and wriggle into their futons
then we all give up sleeping
go down to the living room
and watch TV news of the storm
until the power cuts off
then we’re in the dark
pointing our flashlights
setting up the camping lantern
opening the sofa bed
that we bought when we moved here
for visitors from the States
who never seem to visit
and we squish in together
and in the lantern light
we listen to Dad tell a story
a story he learned
in Massachusetts
when he was a boy
Dad’s story
which he says may
or may not be true
is about a white deer
considered sacred to Mohicans
a deer that came in the early morning
and at dusk to drink from a lake
and a French fur trader
who wanted very badly
the skin of that white deer
but the tribal leaders wouldn’t
give it up and guarded the deer
and its fawn which was
also white
until one night
one member of the tribe betrayed them
took the white deer to the Frenchman
who killed it and skinned it
and set off for Canada
which was the way to get to France
in those days
Cora whimpers he killed it? he killed the white deer?
yes, sweetie, I’m sorry Dad says
what about the fawn?
just listen Dad says
after the white deer
was killed and taken away
all good fortune ended
there was famine
and illness in the valley
there were battles
and crop blights
but they say that the fawn
just may have survived
and that years later a hunter
near the lake saw a white deer
and took aim with his gun
but the birds cried out
and squirrels chattered
and his dog barked
alerting the deer to run
and they say that even today
if you go hiking there
in the valley near the lake
you might catch sight
of not a white-tailed deer
but an all-white deer
and they say that, to this day
all the animals in that valley
will do anything
to protect their deer
and that hunters
near that lake
never succeed
in bagging deer
that’s a sad story Cora says
and Mom rubs her back
then Dad goes on
telling us the story
of some white deer
that came to listen
when Mugaku Sogen
a Buddhist priest from China
gave his first sermon
in the late 1200s
at the temple Engakuji
right here in Kamakura …
and the four of us, lined up
not very comfortably
on the too-narrow sofa bed
all thinking of white deer
start to doze
waking up whenever
something cracks
or the house shakes
or branches rake across
the rain shutters