Green Shade

[Nara Deer Park]
 

With my head on his spotted back

and his head on the grass—a little bored

with the quiet motion of life

and a cluster of mosquitoes making

hot black dunes in the air—we slept

with the smell of his fur engulfing us.

It was as if my dominant functions were gazing

and dreaming in a field of semiwild deer.

It was as if I could dream what I wanted,

and what I wanted was to long for nothing—

no facts, no reasons—never to say again,

"I want to be like him," and to lie instead

in the hollow deep grass—without esteem or riches—

gazing into the big, lacquer black eyes of a deer.