"The rhymes," Lydia says "they're sending me to sleep!
Is that what they are meant to do?"
"My dream, my visionary dream.
Don't you want to know
What you were doing, how the sky
Went purple and gold around us, how, at one moment, a deer .. "
"A deer? Don't tell me, 'with huge and shining eyes'?"
"Yes," I said. "Yes," she said, "and the deer TALKED, didn't it?"
I said nothing. What could I say?
"Really, a deer with 'huge shining eyes'
Talking in the snow at us . . .
Was there a crucifix between its antlers
Or did it just sermonise like Balaam's ass?
Ha, ha," she goes mirthlessly, "Ha, ha.
I don't dig revelations,
They tend to veer toward the banal I find."
"Yes," I said, "it talked beautifully. It talked Latin."
"Naturally," Lydia said.
"The Agnus Dei," I said. "Naturally,
What else would a deer be saying?"
"And you, Lydia, were kneeling in the snow by it, praying
And weeping."
"In your dreams, Fernando,
I am always praying and weeping."
