Selections from “Deer Diaries”

Selections from "Deer Diaries"

Enjoy this sampling of the poems included in Judith’s collection, Deer Diaries.

Cathedral

You can also watch and listen as Judith reads her poetry.

The Three-legged Doe

After long drought
the white oak drops
three times as many acorns
as in a year of good rain.
Under its spreading limbs
the three-legged doe stops to gorge,
right front leg sheared off
halfway between her knee
and hoof—victim of a car?
a stump hole in the woods?
or the black rocks in the stream
she crosses to get to my yard?

In the pasture I pick her out
two hundred yards away
shoulder sinking every stride
her stump touches ground
or the lurch when she bolts
with the herd full speed.

At dusk I see her
flanked by last year’s twins
and this year’s lone fawn
its spots faded by November,
its coat like hers turned gray.
He rams her udder hard.

She watches for hunters
lurking in the woods.

First Fawn

I watch for you all spring
fragile in your mother’s belly
growing larger stronger
as she lumbers across
the middle pasture
last year’s twin fawns
yearlings now, her herd
her core, grazing
safe around her

I watch for her belly
to go flat

I watch for you
at the edges
of the woods

am I early
are you late

I drive out
an evening with friends
take backroads home
at dusk braking
for your sisters
brothers uncles aunts
grazing the shoulders
of Hamlet Chapel
and River Roads.

I slow to forty, thirty
can’t afford to wreck my car
can’t bear ever again
to feel that thud

Light fading
I drive downhill
toward Chicken Bridge
which spans the rocky Haw
the Trout quintet playing
on my old car’s
old-fashioned radio

and there you are

no bigger than a fox
spots pristine white
legs like fiddlesticks
scrambling up a bank
steeper than stair steps
into the untamed tangle
of old growth forest

where your mother
waits for you

What the Snail Wants

Little snail, night wanderer,
why cross my driveway
in the middle of the day?
I pick you up, your whorled world
no bigger than a nickel, your slimy
body flesh-colored as my skin.

I turn you over, gravel bits
clinging to your sticky foot.
Crusher run was not a hazard
sixty million years ago when
your kind inched across the earth.

Afraid the bits will hurt you
I push them off. One sticks.
I pry it loose. You squeak
slam down your antennae
retract inside your shell.
I meant no harm. The daily
FedEx truck could squash you.
With abject apologies from my species
I find a spot of good clean dirt
under dogwood trees
amongst vinca and expiring daffodils
and set you free to roam with deer.

But what if you hoard gravel bits and
squeaked because I stole your treasure?

What if I spoiled your bold adventure
across a vast and daunting plain?

Deer Scat

Scat in the rose beds,
scat in the drive,
under the pine trees,
dotting the lawn,

down in the ditches
where day lilies grow,
scattered on flagstones
that lead to the porch,

by the nandina the deer
strip of red berries,
over to beauty bushes
and swamp azalea
they prune for us.

Two hundred dollars
worth of tulips
beheaded before
they bloomed.

Whose property do
they think this is?
my exasperated
husband asks.

Ours, their cloven
hoof falls whisper,
since the dawn of time.

Summer Morning Drive to Town

Deer hurtle through
banked pokeberries
shoot across the road

then a flash albino doe
ancient as a pine cone

I brake in breathless wonder

How did she survive
a winter of no snow
her mates in bark-grey
camouflage?

I imagine
the old white stag
last sighted
at the grist mill
could explain
the burdens
of singularity

Till then she’ll
fend at the edge
one of the herd
and not one of the herd

Twin Fawns

Two fawns barely old enough
to graze slip inside the fence
from the shelter of the woods
spots still bright
their mother on patrol.

I look away and sigh
at the disorder of
my kitchen—last night’s
pasta with Italian sausage
onions and green peppers
took a lot of pots. I ought
to clean up my mess now.

But they’re the first twins
I’ve seen this spring
skinny fluffy fresh
and I look back
only to find them gone.

Any pursuit of wonder
requires obsessive vigilance.

Little Brown Bird

Or gray. It could be gray.

Lands light on a branch
of pussywillow neglected
beside a corner of the house,
then dives into the shrubbery
overrun with white oak seedlings
spreading lemon balm.

It’s back in a second, beak
clamped on a squiggly worm
devours it in three swift gulps
and darts off past the walnut tree
toward the setting sun.

What was it? Not a swallow,
robin, cowbird, blue bird,
jay, mockingbird,
my yard familiars.

Mornings, a phoebe wakes me
anytime I leave the windows open.
Could she be this drab?

Then I think—and it’s a stretch—
titmouse! Juvenile. Smaller
than an adult, not as much crest.

But the bird’s long gone,
worm dead, craw full,
and I’m still not sure.

Titmouse? Phoebe?
Phoebe? Titmouse?
I don’t know enough.
Never know enough.

Cathedral

i

Poplar, oak and cedar poke
steeples in the summer morning
sky. The bee sermon drones late.
Deer spill onto new-mown pasture,
nibbling blades of sweet grass,
gossiping with girlfriends.

ii

In fall the leaves turn amber,
ocher, crimson, ruby, brown,
kaleidoscope of stained glass
swirling in the air. Antlered deacons
sniff the sanctuary incense,
cold damp rising from the stones.

iii

A rare snow, and naked branches
buttress the sky, haven for cardinals,
wrens and sparrows who chirp hymns
of praise, forage under leaves for bugs.
Deer footfalls carve frozen paths
like stairsteps worn by sandaled monks.

iv

Snow melts. First fawns push out,
wet bodies baptized at the fount
of humus beds. Dogwoods’ new leaves
reach up like tiny hands in prayer.
The bird choir molts into new robes,
whistling, warbling Worship, here.