I went out to cut some chives
in the pale morning. On the hill, a herd
of deer, and bees leaving their hives,
coming to the garden, a sweet blur
of insect sound, full of honeyed purpose.
I, oblivious, dreaming of the ocean,
imagining coral beaches, surfaced
nearly nose-to-nose with a doe, stunned
as she, frozen, dazed past reason.
                     It seemed fantastic,
a wild gesture of this maddened season,
as though my dream had stretched, elastic,
to pull me back to this alpine day, blood
to blood with deer, with what is sacred.