6.29.2008

Deer Heart


October 29th
Yellowstone National Park

The suns warmth graces me
The air is colder than cool
The ground is frozen where water travels the surface
We are in the midst of seasonal transition
The lone buffalo in the meadow is wearing a thick coat, dressed for ice and snow

Leaving the park, the sun sinks towards the earth
Shadows grow longer
Striking in appearance
Light showing off all that it touches
Deer are out in hundreds
No exaggeration
Eating and hanging with the herd

I drive on
Wanting to enjoy the scenes
Wanting tomorrow’s drive to be shorter
I am now in Wyoming
This land takes a new feel and shape
Golden rolling hills
Pointed peaks
Endless grasslands
where are the trees?
I feel a sense of respect
If I were to walk day after day
What would this land teach me?

As darkness falls, I find my eyes sweeping the path I drive
Looking for animals, mostly deer
I feel anxious remembering my vision of two days ago:

I was driving the highway in Montana
In an instant a deer was in front of my van
I crashed into it
Pulling the van over
Running to the deer
Finding it breathing with difficulty, bleeding
I pull it off the road
We look into one another’s eyes, it’s life draining away
Without words it tells me
“Eat my heart, take my life into you, so that I may live on through you”
Knowing that honoring this request was the only possibility
I began eating it's heart, warm and beating with life
Blood running down my chin and hands

With it’s last breath
The deers spirit enters me
I am wild
I am deer
I know nothing else
Not my name
Not the world around me
We are immersed in one another
This deer's heart beating in my own

As the deer’s breath enters my body
It’s body lies limp in my arms
Something pulls me from it’s body
and it’s body from my arms
My eyes become accustomed to the life around me
People looking at me as though I am lost, crazed with blood on me
They think it is the shock of killing this deer with my van
They could never know that I am now deer
as well as woman

My eyes sweep the road my van flies down
Remembering the deer protectors glued onto the bumper
Plastic gadgets that whistle and warn animals of an approaching vehicle
Work, I pray
Not only do I not want to kill anyone
I feel anxious of the heart
The beating warm heart I may have to eat

My awareness drops to my chest
A deer now lives within it
Vision united us
We have become one


To read more inspired by the word "vision" visit: Sunday Scribblings

16 comments:

  1. A beautiful vision, and yet another of your always numinous photographs. I love the lines:

    know nothing else
    Not my name
    Not the world around me

    Thanks for the continued blessings of your eyes.

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  2. I'm melting with this lovely scene, sweeeeeet!

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  3. WOW! That picture, vision and prose was really beautiful.

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  4. AnonymousJuly 01, 2008

    Wow gave me goosebumps! beautiful

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  5. I want to pass on the Arte y Pico award to you...
    For your creativity...for always being there...for being so open and supportive...Thank you...
    Please pick up your award at:
    http://amusingmuses2.blogspot.com
    and follow the rules to pass it on.

    Love,
    Alberta

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  6. One word...beautiful!!
    Ok, a couple more... thank you!!

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  7. This piece is held me in its trance, held centuries in its mists and made me smile in my depths. Thank you very much. I got here through pagans of etsy. My poet muse has been begging to let loose this week and you have spoken to her.

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  8. I agree, it's beautiful. :)

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  9. :)
    thanks darlin..

    this one is so good, i mean i could actually hear the heart beating

    reminds me of my old post
    http://moonlovechild.blogspot.
    com/2007/05/poetry-for-thought.html

    ((couldnt paste the full link ))

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  10. Thank you all so much for experiencing this piece, it is special to me. For it was exactly how I wrote it. A vision that came in a split second and a couple days later it came back to me as I traveled. Some things stay with us, this is one that has.

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  11. Oh how wonderful, the deer now lives within me. It must have been so overwhelming. :)
    Also I've heard the best from the Yellowstone Park, the whole thing must have been a terrific experience :)

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  12. beautiful..

    Tammie Lee,
    I have an award for you over at my blog..

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  13. Hey, Tammie, I'm passing an award to you! Please pick it up on my blog!

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  14. this is just amazing...
    I am so lucky I came here to your blog. You just my feelings into words and I can feel them again and again...as I read they come back to me.
    Thank you.

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  15. Oh my but that practically killed me. I read this like you were driving, my eyes sweeping the words, not knowing the way the path would go. I was so absorbed in the task of sweeping and comprehending that I was shocked, upset when the deer was hit. I edged closer to the front of my chair as I pushed through the words. I was disturbed at first. Becoming deer made it spiritually better but I’m still humanly sad about the whole thing! You turned out a very deeply compelling piece! An emotion magnet! Exceptionally written!

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Warm greetings to you~

Thank you for visiting and also for sharing your thoughts and feelings. Seeing anew through your eyes and heart mean so much to me!

Tammie