The Road to the Spring: Collected Poems of Mary Austin

[By the Deer's Cry]

422 [By the Deer’s Cry] You should have loved me by the Deer’s Cry, There at Jemez. Snow crisp as ash on the fire-red mountain bosses, Gilt of the falling waters, Dawn blue, out of the soft blackness Of midnight paling To the flail of the kiva drums, All night, till our hearts are beaten One with the earth-heart. You should have loved me by the Deer’s Cry, There at Jemez. Dawn blue beaten out of thick blackness By the flail of the kiva drums, And come, come, come, say the tombes, There where the medicine women Call by the earth-power, power of women, And the great males of the deer kind Come down from the mountain. Editor’s Notes AU 654; three typescripts in various stages. Deer’s Cry is a ceremonial dance to bring bucks down from the mountain. Jemez names the river and the pueblo. ...