I hear it before I see it through the trees, crackling and popping in the tinder-dry sticks and leaf litter: a small herd of deer.
deer
September 6, 2010
From the vicinity of the powerline—a stripe of sunlight through the woods—the sporadic want… want… want of a buck coming into rut.
August 27, 2010
The sound of deer running through the woods, and from over the ridge, that highway whine: we race through the deserts of our own making.
August 13, 2010
When I come outside, four deer run off: two doe, a fawn, and a buck with antlers so new he doesn’t yet duck low enough to avoid branches.
July 27, 2010
In the springhouse marsh, 13 cattail spikes are turning brown. When I go over for a closer look, a deer pops her head up, swivels her ears.
July 19, 2010
A woodchuck waddles down the road, pausing every few feet to poke its head into the weeds. A fawn bleats up in the laurel. The sun goes in.
July 12, 2010
Cloudy and cool. Up to its snout in grass, a deer sneezes. The quiet squeaks of a hummingbird circling the beebalm.
July 1, 2010
My mind drifts. At what precise angle of sun, I wonder, does the light lose its magic? I glance over and meet a deer’s unreadable eyes.
June 21, 2010
Solstice sun in the treetops. The lilac quivers as two titmice move through, grooming it for insects. A fawn dances out into the meadow.
June 13, 2010
The air is close, but it gets even closer: first a shower, then a torrent. The wood thrush falls silent. The doe flicks water from her ears.
A doe strains to lick the flies… June 4, 2010
A doe strains to lick the flies from the part of her back her tail can’t sweep, black riders unshaken by the endless tremors in her fur.
June 2, 2010
A small ichneumon wasp alights on a porch post, tapping and listening for signs of life. Up in the woods, a deer’s explosive snort.
May 16, 2010
At daybreak, a small deer leaps and twists like a bronco with an invisible rider, then careens through the purple haze of dame’s-rocket.
April 21, 2010
A scarlet bough at the woods’ edge: I peer through binoculars at the first red maple keys. Deer straggle by in their ragged spring coats.