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| Before the doe's eyes appeared in the thicket beyond the garden. |
Dear Friend, how do I tell you what happened in the garden last night? About the doe? For you to have been there! At dusk I wandered out needing to inhale slowly, deeply before sleep. Am sick again after six pretty good months. My first spring on the Olympic Peninsula - rucksack, binoculars, camera, and field guides ready at the door. Now unable to hike, I've slowly made my way into the property's garden to accept a life interrupted. Yet again. Terrain so familiar I hardly need a map. Just acceptance.
Closing my eyes, I press both palms into the deeply weathered fence to slow the mental rebellion rising within. Suddenly from across the opposite side of the garden, I see them: two wide-open, luminous, dark eyes piercing into mine. She is concealed but for those eyes. A yearling doe has been reclining in her tamped down garden bed. She embraces me with her eyes, neither of us moving as we dance to a waltz only we two can hear. I am gobsmacked in love. The doe's long, oval ears turn forward as, curiously, she alights upon all fours and gingerly picks her way forward upon the garden path. Walking towards me, never losing eye contact, the doe slides past the far side of a small shed where, for only a moment, we lose sight of one another.
Emerging from behind the shed the doe turns completely towards me, stopping only a few feet away. She is so close I want to reach out and touch her warm doe body, embrace her. What would St. Francis do? He'd burst forth in a canticle. Do I know any canticles? No. Note to self: Learn a canticle. She is stepping closer. What do deer eat, should I stretch out my hand to her? What have I to offer but friendship?
She nimbly moves closer. I am barely breathing as she stands before me. The canticle sings itself. Soon an older doe appears, accompanied by a yearling buck sporting two velvety nubs atop his sienna head. He is her brother and the other doe, her mom. The whole family has emerged and now we four inhale each other through and through. Rapture.
My breathing softens in exquisite communion, the yearling doe's eyes never leaving my own. Her mother and brother wander about, grazing noncommitally until, in a flash, all ears perk up and, nostrils flaring, the young buck snorts loudly. He and mom crash back into the underbrush and into the forest. The young doe pauses for just a moment before, arcing skyward she flashes away like an ebullient siren leaving me spellbound.
A Strawberry Full Moon rises.
