November 24, 2019Silver-Backed Chevrotain, with Fangs and Hooves, Photographed in Wild for First Time
Schoolkids all over the country
keep pace with TV cameras
by practicing a new word—impeach—
even as a dozen time zones
from the leaning pillars of democracy,
unseen for decades, a silver-
splashed deer with fangs
tiptoes out of the undergrowth
and presses his nose to the lens,
two unlit moons kissing
in the wild gaps between rivers.
Why should these days matter?
Bones are just the bones
of whatever else came before:
a quickening of dust into rock,
into fire, into blood, then
a softening of God into rain.
See how each drop opens
like luggage, how a heart can only
be a heart if it dies screaming?
Meanwhile, the chevrotain
moves about on hooves
so thin, the mind recalls
the ankles of a ballet dancer,
the stick-limbs of a cave painting.
Even those fangs, used
to fight over mates, only led
to a thickening of muscles
around the throat. We repeat
what we know. Each generation
an untamed refrain you need
not sing, unless you want to.
from Poets Respond