Yellow jacket bite on bare belly

Wake up

Sky clears

Human going wrong way

Runs into doe with two yearlings

On strait hoof-cut deer path.

Eyes deep pools. Watching,

Unafraid, she steps calmly

Down and around, young ones

Skittering after.

This world—absolutely pure

As is. Behind the fear,

Vulnerability. Behind that

Sadness, then compassion

And behind that the vast sky.

Returning I cross the stream

A snake, upright, S-curved

Slit eyes a-glitter

Stares straight ahead.

Tiny black red-tipped forked

Tongue flickering like flame.

We sit eye to eye

Seconds, minutes, ages pass.

Snake doesn’t blink.

I do.

Impeccable attention.

This is how to look at the world

You are returning to.

Snake doesn’t move. I do.

I bow, inhaling sweet pine resin

And pass back over the rushing stream

To the other side.

∞

From the Fall 1977 issue of Inquiring Mind (Vol. 14, No. 1)

Text © Rick Fields 1997-2020, used by permission of Marcia Fields