A Picture and a Poem The artist Joshua Abelow creates a drawing inspired by Gabrielle Calvocoressi's poetic encounter with a deer in the twilight. Gabrielle Calvocoressi reads her poem. He's huge. Standing there in the woods where I didn't even see him at first. He doesn't know I'm looking and then he moves a little bit and kicks the ground. I was walking by myself as the sun set. I kept going in deeper to the greenest spot until I found a clearing. He was the clearing. He took the clearing up and stood there still and watched me till I saw him. I saw his shoulders first and then his neck. I think he was so golden in the sun I didn't know what he was. And I thought the branches were his horns. I thought he was an eight point stag. And how his chest made a kind of giant heart out of me out of my eyes looking. And he let me look. He stood there in the green not moving. I thought his horns were leaves. I saw eight branches coming from his head. He didn't stop my looking. He didn't run away. I watched the whole of him. I saw his arms and the taper of his legs. He let me watch him for maybe hours but really moments like a gift. Like when you're almost home and smell them cooking supper but you're still outside and could just turn back around. We stood like that together. He let me touch the whole of him. Every rise and muscle. He let me rest on the hollow of his neck and breathe it in for four whole breaths. He said my name or he shook his head inside the leaves and sighed and let the light come into us. He let the light hold us for a while.