Friday, 29 of March of 2024

James Dickey – The Heaven of Animals

Soft_Eyes_Watching

Animal heaven

Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on the plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.

Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
4489435797_b036394000The soft eyes open.

To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.

For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,

More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey
wild-animal-eye-retinas-2
May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
know this as their life,
their reward: to walk

Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in the glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain

At the cycle’s center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.


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