Night Of The Dancing White Buck

In the hills above Santa Fe, the snow was falling in the silence of the moonlit night. I was sitting outside in my hot tub, watching the flakes fall. Down the hill, in town, Reynaldo lay dying.

Our AIDS support group members had been visiting him, even though he'd been unconscious most of the time and none of us knew him. We were able to do some small things for him. We touched him, so he knew he was not alone. His family was on their way to Santa Fe. He was part Apache, and once, when he regained consciousness, he asked us to have a Medicine Man come to him in the hospital. We found a man with sacred knowledge who came from a nearby Pueblo and performed a ceremony to help ease Reynaldo's spirit for the journey he was undertaking. It felt good, and purifying.

I'd planned to go down once more to the hospital later that night, after relaxing a bit in the hot tub. But soon after I'd gotten in, I had a strong urge to get to the hospital RIGHT AWAY. I was about to get up, when I noticed a movement in the piñon and juniper trees that surrounded the little clearing the hot tub was in.

As I watched in silent amazement, a large white deer stepped out into the clearing, clearly visible in the moonlight, even through the falling snow. He paused, turned his head towards me, and seemed to look directly into my eyes. Then, he began to DANCE. He lept, and twirled, and pranced with obvious joy. And then he vanished, leaving me staring out through the snow to the empty space where he had been.

Mystified, I climbed out of the hot tub, pulled on my clothes, and drove down into town to the hospital. It took me right around 20 minutes to get there. When I arrived, several members of the support team were outside the hospital. They told me Reynaldo had passed over. I asked how long ago he had died, and they told me it was just 20 minutes earlier. Then I understood, and I knew that Reynaldo had found great freedom and exhilaration in his release from human form, and I knew that the vision of the white buck was his parting gift to me.

For Miguel

For Miguel
(1970 - 1990)

Miguel, you came across the border
looking for the American Dream,
and instead wound up, at age 15,
a beautiful boy toy, selling your body
on the streets of Chicago.

And by the time you were 20,
your dream had degenerated
into the nightmare of AIDS,
of pain, sickness, and death.

You asked me to take you and your mother
shopping for your coffin, and I did.
In the car, on the way back,
I understood your mother's spanish,
when she sighed, and said:
"Oh God! We are here only to suffer!"

After coffin shopping,
you pulled me aside,
and told me your greatest fear:
That they would say you were dead,
when you weren't quite yet,
and you would be buried alive.

Later, when you were almost blind,
and you hair was beginning to fall out,
I was there when the priest came to call.
He told you that your suffering was a good thing,
because it brought you closer to God.
You turned your head to the wall.
And I think we both were wondering:
Who really wants to be closer
to a God who can be so cruel?

~ 2003 ~