THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN'T LOVE

The deer come by tonight at dusk

While I am standing still.

Night falls so early as it must.

I wait for dark until

It catches me by quick surprise,

The sun to sudden drop.

How cold and bright our winter eyes.

I wish that time would stop.

The day, bare trees, December stars, 

The white tail boundless free.

its home is one without false wars.

where I would rather be.

 

On cue I see the geese in flight.

They loudly cross the sky

To give the rising moon a fright.

Whole towns hear them squawk by.

It's darker now and all I feel

Is breath of faun and doe

Beneath the cedars settling in.

The geese are quiet too.

A Silent Night is such release,

To huddle close like deer.

Or wait for morning like the geese,

With nothing frightening near.

It's true there's nothing we can't love

If greed we keep at bay.

If our heart's focus is above

Where saints and angels play.

It helps to see the doe and stag,

The goose and gosling too.

The waxing and the waning moon,

The people called the poor.

 

It helps to know we're not alone, 

That we are creatures sure.   

That what's at stake is life on earth.

 

 

 

                                                 

                                                

 

 

                                                  

                                                 

 

DUSK IN WINTER

 

I raise my head and spot her

In her winter coat, chestnut-colored, darker,

Rougher though I've never touched it, never gotten near

(We're merely yards apart).

No fawn to synchronize this time of year,

To mark each flutter, flick of ear.

They're meant to live in tandem, these white-tails.  

But there she is alone,

Nosing deep for something almost gone.  I'm not here. 

Standing quiet now, now alert, then bends once more to the deed.

She's gone, so nimbly I barely see, sheltered by dusk, her own vigilance

Errless, dancing between bare trees.