In the pouring rain, a six-point buck rips leaves off a lilac branch that the storm broke down, his antlers the same color as the break.
deer
October 27, 2009
A yellow barberry bush at the edge of the woods trembles violently: two deer are stripping the fruit from its thorny branches.
September 23, 2009
At first light, the soft wickering of migrant wood thrushes. A deer snorts three times, and suddenly I’m seeing a bear in every shadow.
September 11, 2009
Riddle me this: Because of the heavy acorn crop, next summer we will see more roses. And this: the oak forest moves north on corvid wings.
September 9, 2009
The doe is turning from the top down, like a mountain: summer’s red has receded into her legs and belly. On the fawn, just five faint spots.
August 29, 2009
I glimpse the mother doe and her fawns running just inside the woods’ edge, hear the clatter of hooves going past. A minute of almost-sun.
August 23, 2009
Halfway up the ridge, the hectoring alarm-calls of a squirrel. A few seconds later, a deer joins in: explosive snorts. The sun comes out.
July 30, 2009
Glory be to God for punctuation: the fawn’s spots glowing in the gloom, drifting insect-motes, garlic in the yard, a ten-second rain.
July 28, 2009
July 18, 2009
Half-burp, half-grunt, this utterance of a mother deer to her playful fawns. Twin leaves flutter to the ground like wings of a green bird.
On the steep slope below my parents… July 5, 2009
On the steep slope below my parents’ house, a doe sweeps the deerflies from her twin fawns’ spotted backs with her long, rough tongue.
July 4, 2009
July 2, 2009
June 26, 2009
Bright sunshine after a night of thunderstorms. Four deer—two does and two fawns—run through the steaming woods.