What of the deer,
Pacific? Remember when we drew
them? The drawings are in that
clothbound book. The deer just held there like
they were made of paper. Perhaps their instincts
tell them to be afraid and their hearts tell them something else.
Now I watch them, write of them. I turn the page; they look at each other, the
sound of the paper having startled them.
The big one turns his back on me, now lopes away.
Earlier, I approached them. I held out my arms and spoke to them and
tossed them apples. They looked at the
apples on the grass and would not go near them.
I inched towards the deer, with arms outstretched, and got within ten
feet before they fled.
Now I sit here in the amphitheater of my
home, in the open back door. The gray is
lovely, tinted yellow. A dissolving fog rinses
the treetops. Two crows soar across the
screen. Language goes back and forth
between the black birds.
I
wish you were here, Pacific. We would wait for the deer to gain courage and we
would draw them again and try to feed them apples.
Rain, fog, our wet world adds detail to
the day. The incessant wisp of tires keeps
time moving forward. The rain starts, it
stops, never predictable. Someday you
will understand, my son, you will understand how little you know, and your perception
will change.
Where are the deer, Pacific? How long should we wait? Should we go find them?
One time we snuck up on them and got so
close we could have hugged them. When they
finally tripped, we were right beside them.
Pacific, they were not as afraid of you as they were of me. You could have kissed them. Remember when we got that picture of the
fauns kissing? Were they kissing, or
sharing a flower?
Would you like to live like them, to sleep
under a bush, to eat plants out of gardens, to always be on guard, always ready
to flee?
Perhaps they relax when they believe they
are alone, and that is why they can be startled so. We shock them. Their memories are poor.
They are right to be afraid. Their meat is as peculiar in its taste as the
animal is beautiful, with its white tail, with its bowed legs, because of its
big bulging black eyes. And the deer can
run faster than us and better bear the cold.
The deer is pure in its silent relationship with creation. The deer belongs in heaven, I think. Its blood is purple and in a legend was
sifted for gold. Someday, Pacific, I
hope to bless with you a meal of venison.
But never
would I harm these deer, for I know them.
In that, in knowing them as neighbors and therefore respecting their
existence, I fear lies a terrible truth.
A deer somewhere else, in some hunting forest, seen from afar, that deer
I could kill.
I knew these deer when they were
fawns. Their white spots betrayed them
as they rested under a fir tree. Kirsten
pointed them out to me. Sunlight was
around them, their spots reflecting the light.
It seemed as though they were imagined.
I felt certain they were possessed by angels or saints or children.
