The Way the Language Was

The day the deer died,
I was alive in my house. 
I was alive in a watery field
of glaciers. In the realm 
of birchwood in my throat.
The day the robins wept, the day
foxes ran from the woods on fire. 
I was alive in a decade. Sometimes
dreaming of another region 
was my religion. It was 
a place before trees, prior 
to the flame. When the deer died,
I was in my house dreaming. Then 
the drought came. Cessation 
of sound. Flames as red as apples 
lodged inside my throat hissing.