Strong sun, deep shadow. Off in the woods, two deer-shaped silhouettes glide through a sunlit glade. A mourning dove coos a single note.
white-tailed deer
The delicate sneezes of a deer grazing on the thorny canes of multiflora rose bushes. She stretches a hind leg up to rub her nose.
The warmest morning in weeks. The bracken in my yard that the deer mowed down has raised defiant fists. A red-eyed vireo drones on and on.
This isn’t how Hollywood would’ve scripted the deer season opener: flat light with no hint of shadow. Shots don’t ring out—they merely thud.
Bright and still; the meadow glitters with frost. Behind the house, a deer sniffs then licks a fallen pear and turns away.
Just as I come out, a doe and her grown fawn emerge from the lilac. We stand and stare at each other. I notice one of her ears has a crimp.
A stag prances through the gray goldenrod and into the dim, dripping woods with his six bright spears held high—a parade of one.
Melted frost shining like dew on the lilac. A deer trots down the road and into the yard to graze, raising her head to keep an eye on me.
Warm, with a bleary sun. Three deer file out of the woods: a doe with grown fawns. She pauses to browse the leaves on a feral privet bush.
The alarm snorts of deer down-hollow give way to the higher-pitched snorting of a fawn in the field. Whatever it is, it’s heading southwest.
Below the porch, I notice a single orange jewelweed overlooked by the deer. The hummingbird zips right past it on her way to the garden.
Weak sunlight: a milkiness in the sky like the film that forms over the eyes of the dead. A lone fawn runs bleating through the forest.
The oriole’s glossy song. Up in the woods, a deer snorts in alarm for half an hour, until I think a bear or coyote must’ve found her fawn.
The black currants are in full leaf, squat from their winter’s pruning by the deer. Down-hollow, a hen turkey yelping, a tom gobbling back.