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THE ISLAND
OF ALIVE, SON OF AWAKE
1
The little boy baby is washed up on an island.
The island, this island is what we're
seeing, what we with our eyes open
see all around us, and this baby
in its purity
washed by a wave onto the beach, is brought up by a
doe, softly licking his face as he
lies on the sand, and then
nudging him, finally bringing him
along with her somehow and
bedding him down with her
fawns in the pine-needles and
leaves.
It is late. The light is low. The forest deepens with
the dark.
Time passes. The child grows. He cavorts with
fawns for friends, and speechless
sees through the leaves the
light of night and day.
The light of night being the knowledge of sleep,
lodestone of dreams, flutter and
fragile sweep of worlds as they
rearrange their sensual modes
in our
sleep. He
slept, and in
first daylight woke to lope with deer on hillsides
looking for berries or edible
leaves. And they
showed him the seasonal yields, and he
selected the ones most
suitable to his palate,
and he grew
strange but as wise as those young eyes could
train him to the particular world
around him. He watched for its
measurements, its qualities, its strange
characteristics: water wets, dust dirts, fire
burns, heat scalds, cold things grow warm,
warm things cold, long days, short days,
the howling nights, the days alert to
crack and whistle of warbler or
waterfall.
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