Oh, Deer

Yesterday late afternoon as we headed out our front door to say goodbye to our kids and grandchildren (after having a lovely lunch together and playing games), we saw a doe and very new fawn run across the street. The fawn looked a little shaky on its legs so we guessed that it was newly born.

Oh, Deer!

It was so special for all of us to watch the young fawn on its wobbly legs heading down the hill across the street. I wished that I could grab my camera and follow them, but I didn’t want to disturb the new family with my presence.

This Morning I Watched the Deer

This morning I watched the deer
   with beautiful lips touching the tips
of the cranberries, setting their hooves down
   in the dampness carelessly, isn’t it after all
the carpet of their house, their home, whose roof
   is the sky?

Why, then, was I suddenly miserable?

Well, this is nothing much.
This is the heaviness of the body watching the swallows
   gliding just under that roof.

This is the wish that the deer would not lift their heads
   and leap away, leaving me there alone.
This is the wish to touch their faces, their brown wrists –
   to sing some sparking poem into
the folds of their ears.

then walk with them,
over the hills
and over the hills

and into the impossible trees.

   — Mary Oliver

This morning I saw a doe grazing across the pond and frequently looking to a sheltered spot under a nearby tree. Later I saw her lying down in that area and guessed that this was the doe we saw yesterday and that her fawn was sheltering under the tree where she was now lying.

Late morning, I saw the doe in a neighbor’s yard nearby and she was still frequently glancing at the spot under the tree. Now they are gone but I think they probably spent the night sheltering in the tall greenery on the far side of the pond. I will be watching for them every time I look out the windows towards the pond now, hoping to catch a glimpse of the fawn and the doe — a little bit of wild beauty in my own backyard.

Have a beautiful day!

May you walk in beauty.