Dialogue in November

NOVEMBER and the long stare of the snow:
Do you remember, dear, when we came here
The first time? The rain blew in a tide outside
And Dian stalked us with a borrowed bow;
Shafts cut the early crystals, and light flew
For cover in the dark wound of the slain.
Then night came and your wet face on the glass
Wanted to know who prowled the fields all day
Trying to be a cal. The great owl flapped
Ghost-white among the trees — the wishing trees.
My dear, how quick we were, how quick that year
Of arrows in the snow. . . . I’ll hold the quiver
While you string the bow.

No, not again this year,
Not in this snow.

The wind here is the same,
Nearly the same as the wind was when we
Saw stars wink in the chimney smoke over
The fallen stag; and nothing could hurt us,
Nothing hurt us then, save waiting behind
Windows while the wind broke glass and shivered
Through the pines.

My eyes are cold tonight.
I can’t go back in winter when the moon
Is so severe, not any more, not ever.
Looking then was looking at the rain,
The way the rain would fall and flow into
Hoofprints before we could know how they went,
What it meant to really go, to touch and go
Running like caribou after the wind.
Looking then was litlle. When we came here
We were hoping for trails, tracks in the snow
That always comes back bringing you, you and me,
To the heart’s red room under the dying year.

We tied the young buck to a cypress tree,
But the blood froze as it fell. You watched me
Cut the meat and bit your nails. Remember
How I cried that night for you?

O my love,
How long we’ve waited to come here alone.
Before we were so taken with the rain
We wanted to run outside. But the moon
And the owl are old in the nest of my eyes;
And I can’t go with you where field mice run
Or burrow their way in the deep hay under
The bird’s shadow. . . . They have returned: November,
Stag with wishes on his head, the crystals
Blazing in the fur as bright as winter
Tracks light for the dead.

And can I leave you now,
Knowing you know why the stag won t die
And Eros comes much bigger with his bow?

What do the trees dance underneath the moon?
The Hay, The Hay! There’s not hing like The Hay,
But your eyes and the stars’ light on the prize
November often gives back to the prey.

Where is the quiver wanting? and the bow?

Under the snow, my love, under the snow.