The Grass is Always Greener

This morning I took my walk on a path the runs beside Medicine Lake. As I was just reaching my turn-around point on the path, I saw a beautiful deer peek out of the trees beside the lake. She ducked back into the trees when she saw a woman approaching with a dog. But I stayed still and waited and my patience paid off.

Slowly she re-emerged from the trees and carefully and gracefully walked across the road to browse, where, at least for her,

The grass is always greener

on the other side of the road.

Though there are many wild deer in this area when I see them on my wanderings I always feel blessed. This morning I thought, “So this is why I took this path this morning—to meet you here. Thank you. Thank you.”

And so today, I share another Mary Oliver poem about a sighting of two deer in the woods. And, yes, I agree with Mary, “this is how you pray.”

Five A. M. in the Pinewoods

I’d seen

their hoofprints in the deep

needles and knew

they ended the long night

under the pines, walking

like two mute

and beautiful women toward

the deeper woods, so I

got up in the dark and

went there. They came

slowly down the hill

and looked at me sitting under

the blue trees, shyly

they stepped

closer and stared

from under their thick lashes and even

nibbled some damp

tassels of weeds. This

is not a poem about a dream,

though it could be.

This is a poem about the world

that is ours, or could be.

Finally

one of them—I swear it!—

would have come to my arms.

But the other

stamped sharp hoof in the

pine needles like

the tap of sanity,

and they went off together through

the trees. When I woke

I was alone,

I was thinking:

so this is how you swim inward,

so this is how you flow outward,

so this is how you pray.

   — Mary Oliver