Dawn in the Internment Camp at Heart Mountain
(Wyoming, 1943)

Someone clever has carved a deer
out of a scrap of wood
and set it on a table or shelf
inside a shabby room among a file
of barracks, along a street of sleep.
In its miniature dawn, its hues
are gradually revealed,
its legs regain their poise,
its eyes open. Someone clever
has set a mountain in the backyard
beyond the barracks and morning's incipient din,
to loom above the density of human emotions,
to relieve the clutter of stars overhead.
And—just now it beckons to the deer.

Copyright © 2004 George Uba All rights reserved
from Disorient Ballroom
Turning Point
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission