Tree art by Stephen King
Two Deer, Racing Toward You
The two deer are racing toward you and your car,
not away from you, on the highway. At an angle—racing toward you.
Both are looking at you as you and your car race toward them. They
have leapt from juniper and chamisa and rocks on your left. They are
racing toward you, not away from you, and they are looking straight
at you. You are pressing your brakes hard and you see a hundred points
of ruffle in their hair, their hide, their chests. They are challenging you.
They are two young males still without antlers. Same mother, or different
mothers? They want you to stop, avert yourself, let them lead. You are
trying to stop. They fill your view like a movie. They must triumph.
They must go on without touching you or you touching them. Your brakes
slow the car slightly. They do not know but you know the stories of deer
going through the windshield of the car and killing all. They, like young
kings, somehow bounding on. They are two boys you knew in college
who loved each other like brothers and then all their lives later.
You remember their magnificence. You remain alive to write this poem.
Red
Red comes in like the actor or actress everyone needs and dreads. They say what needs to be said. After it's said everyone is silent. Sleeves hang long and deep on these actors' arms. These actors wear sandals. They look straight ahead. They don't look at people. They don't wear red but the sensation is red.
Red pushes aside the places where you should not live. Red is in the woven wool in the carpets on the floors in the houses where you should live. Where the windows sometimes are almost painfully bright. The morning and the night sharp-vivid. The birds throaty, low-voiced. There are mosses. Ivies. Or other things growing dense and fervent and impassioned on the ground. A confusion of insects and aromas of growing things, and dying things. Sharp bright scents in air.
Red is the memory of old Japan, the knowledge of how it has changed. Red is the old furniture from China. Red is the enormous tree. Red is the Indian reservation. Red has never been the right description of their skin. Their skin is the color of dark, slowly-toasted breads. Sad and beautiful and strong are their eyes. Red is the happy boat well-placed on the river. Red is the shoe that is different from everyone else's, that fits. Red is never stealing from another, and never supporting others who steal. Red is the rare things your mother was right about, when she was quiet and not trying to prove what she was right about. Red is emerging from the cave, never to go in again.
Red is the small hall and the large hall, the thinking things over before you enter a room. Red is avoiding a building which has brought you grief. Red is being glad something is done well. Red is also acknowledging a poorly built bridge has broken, failed, has carried people away. Red is trying not to think about them but eventually having to think about them. Red is hating blaming yourself, but blaming yourself anyway. Red is ignoring people who tell you not to blame yourself. Red is the ache of remembering.
