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And the thing seen right, For once, that winter bought. SpringerMountain Four sweaters are woven upon me, All black, all sweating and waiting, And a sheepherder's coat's wool hood, Buttoned strainingly, holds my eyes With their sight deepfrozen outside them From their gaze toward a single tree. I am here where I never have been, In the limbs ofmy warmest clothes, Waiting for light to crawl, weakly From leafto dead leafonto leaf Down the western side ofthe mountain. Deer sleeping in light far above me Have already woken, and moved, In step with the sun moving strangely Down toward the dark knit ofmy thicket Where my breath takes shape on the air Like a white helmet come from the lungs. The one tree I hope for goes inward And reaches the limbs ofits gold. My eyesight hangs partly between Two twigs on the upslanting ground, Then steps like a god from the dead Wet ofa half-rotted oak log Steeply into the full ofmy brow. My thighbones groaningly break Upward, releasing my body To climb, and to find among humus New insteps made ofsnapped sticks. On my back the faggot ofarrows Rattles and scratches its feathers. I go up over logs slowly On my painfully reborn legs, Springer Mountain / I47 My ears putting out vast hearing Among the invisible animals, Passing under thin branches held still, Kept formed all night as they were By the thought ofpredictable light. The sun comes openly in To my mouth, and is blown out white, But no deer is anywhere near me. I sit down and wait as in darkness. The sweat goes dead at the roots Ofmy hair: a deer is created Descending, then standing and looking. The sun stands and waits for his horns To move. I may be there, also, Between them, in head bones uplifted Like a man in an animal tree Nailed until light comes: A dream ofthe unfeared hunter Who has formed in his brain in the dark And rose with light into his horns, Naked, and I have turned younger At forty than I ever have been. I hang my longbow on a branch. The buck leaps away and then stops, And I step forward, stepping out Ofmy shadow and pulling over My head one dark heavy sweater After another, my dungarees falling Till they can be kicked away, Boots, socks, all that is on me Off. The world catches fire. I put an unbearable light Into breath skinned alive ofits garments: I think, beginning with laurel, Like a beast loving With the whole god bone ofhis horns: The green ofexcess is upon me Helmets / I48 Like deer in fir thickets in winter Stamping and dreaming ofmen Who will kneel with them naked to break The ice from streams with their faces And drink from the lifespring of beasts. He is moving. I am with him Down the shuddering hillside moving Through trees and around, inside And out ofstumps and groves Oflaurel and slash pine, Through hip-searing branches and thorn Brakes, unprotected and sure, Winding down to the waters oflife Where they stand petrified in a creek bed Yet melt and flow from the hills At the touch ofan animal visage, Rejoicing wherever I come to With the gold ofmy breast unwrapped, My crazed laughter pure as good church-cloth, My brain dazed and pointed with trying To grow horns, glad that it cannot, For a few steps deep in the dance Ofwhat I most am and should be And can be only once in this life. He is gone below, and I limp To look for my clothes in the world, A middle-aged, softening man Grinning and shaking his head In amazement to last him forever. I put on the warm-bodied wool, The four sweaters inside out, The bootlaces dangling and tripping, Then pick my tense bow offthe limb And tum with the unwinding hooftracks, In my good, tricked clothes, To hunt, under Springer Mountain, Deer for the first and last time. Springer Mountain / I 49 ...

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