Life after Death
What I envy in the open eyes
of the dead deer hanging down
from the rafters, its eyes
still wet and glassy, but locked now
into a vision of another life,
is the way it seems to be
staring at the moment when
it died. The blue light
falling through the window
into this smoke-filled room
is the same color as the mist
coming down off the mountain
that morning: the deer sees
men with guns
but also sees, beyond them,
the endless mountains.
Copyright Credit: Richard Jones, "Life After Death" from The Blessing: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2000 by Richard Jones. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.