Rain and fog. Two bucks stand among the trees, antlers dripping as they lower their heads for a better look at the doe lying in the weeds.
deer
October 31, 2013
In the dim light, the sound of eight bone knives being whetted against a sapling. The buck straightens up and gives me a baleful look.
October 28, 2013
At the base of the hill, the meadow is white with frost. A small deer carries the white torch of its tail up into the sunlit woods.
October 15, 2013
White shapes appear and disappear in the pre-dawn darkness: nervous deer raising and lowering their tails.
September 18, 2013
Loud wingbeats as the shadow of a raven crosses the yard. A buck gingerly lowers his antlered head to the stream.
September 4, 2013
Two bucks wander past in patchy, shedding coats, spike antlers curved like the horns of anorexic bulls. One pauses to snack on lilac leaves.
August 25, 2013
A pair of cardinals chirp back and forth in the lilac. A small buck with antlers in velvet crashes out of the woods, chased by a larger doe.
June 7, 2013
A deer at the edge of the rain-drenched meadow seems rooted to the spot. At last I glimpse beneath her belly the ears of a very small fawn.
May 27, 2013
Three deer graze in the meadow, ears and tails flapping to keep off the flies. From the valley, a steam locomotive’s lonesome wail.
March 16, 2013
During a lull in the snow, our neighbor drives past on the tractor. A deer leaps up from a patch of laurel, runs a few steps and stops.
November 30, 2012
After weeks of near-absence, crows call and quarrel in all directions. It must be the gut piles, venison viscera festering among the leaves.
November 22, 2012
A deer under the lilac glows strangely in the sunlight refracted from my bedroom window. The waxy myrtle leaves crackle between her teeth.
October 23, 2012
A series of loud sneezes from the dead goldenrod at the woods’ edge where a deer must be bedded down. A junco forages in the stiltgrass.
October 22, 2012
A breeze carries leaves from the dark woods to spiral down into the sunlit yard. A deer feeds on the lilac—the only remaining greenery.