Tag: deer

Among the Hunted

barnstormingblog10 Comments

ahmama

 

wwudeer2

 

My first time ever
seated next to my mother
in a movie theater, just
a skinny four year old girl
practically folded up in half
by a large padded chair
whose seat won’t stay down,
bursting with anticipation
to see Disney’s Bambi.

Enthralled with so much color,
motion,  music, songs and fun
characters, I am wholly lost
in a new world of animated
reality when suddenly
Bambi’s mother looks up,
alarmed,  from eating
a new clump of spring grass
growing in the snow.

My heart leaps
with worry.
She tells him
to run
for the thicket,
the safest place where
she has always
kept him warm
next to her.

She follows behind,
tells him to run faster,
not to look back,
don’t ever look back.

Then the gun shot
hits my belly too.

My stomach twists
as he cries out
for his mother,
pleading for her.
I know in my heart
she is lost forever,
sacrificed for his sake.

I sob as my mother
reaches out to me,
telling me not to look.
I bury my face
inside her hug,
knowing Bambi
is cold and alone
with no mother
at all.

My mama took me home
before the end.
I could not bear to watch
the rest of the movie 
for years.

Those cries
still echo
in my ears
every time someone hunts and shoots
to kill the innocent.

Now, my own children are grown,
my mom is gone from this earth,
I can even keep the seat from folding
me up in a movie theater.

I return Sunday after Sunday
to the killing fields of the church pew
knowing mothers and fathers
sons and daughters
grandmothers and grandfathers
sisters and brothers
and babies were hunted down
inside the supposed safety
of the sanctuary,
taken from the warmth of the human thicket
where we hold each other close.

Their cries echo in my ears
where there is no longer innocence.

 

wwudeer1

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That Pivoting Ear

barnstormingblog2 Comments

wwudeer1

ahmama

Near dusk, near a path, near a brook,
we stopped, I in disquiet and dismay
for the suffering of someone I loved,
the doe in her always incipient alarm.

All that moved was her pivoting ear
the reddening sun was shining through
transformed to a color I’d only seen
in a photo of a new child in a womb.

Nothing else stirred, not a leaf,
not the air, but she startled and bolted
away from me into the crackling brush.

The part of my pain which sometimes
releases me from it fled with her, the rest,
in the rake of the late light, stayed.
~C. K. Williams  “The Doe”

sunset625176

wwudeer2

Oh little one
to have been born this week in June
thirty four years ago~
so wanted
so anticipated
but lost too soon
gone as swiftly in a clot of red
as a doe disappearing in a thicket:
a memory that makes me question
if you were real,
but you were
and you are
and someday
I’ll know you when I see you
and curious about who I am,
you won’t flee,
but stay to find out.

wwudeer2

 

 

Morning Settles

barnstormingblog3 Comments

wwudeer1

morning113158
241802_556812762084_1372663240_o
Perhaps she came down for the apples,
or was flushed out by the saws powering
the far woods, or was simply lost,

or was crossing one open space for another.

She was a figure approaching, a presence
outside a kitchen window, framed
by the leafless apple trees, the stiff blueberry bushes,

the after-harvest corn, the just-before-rain sky,

a shape only narrow bones could hold,

turning its full face upward, head tilted to one side, as if to speak.

I want my life back.

Morning settles around her like a silver coat.
Rustling branches, hooves in flight.
~Philip Terman “Deer Descending”
Who among us does not feel this?

Everything around me changes faster than I can adapt,
trees topple
marriages shatter
illness overwhelms

I am lost
trying to find my way out
trying to find my way back.

I look for Who will take a moment to listen.
I need Refuge where I may rest safe.
I seek Sanctuary where I may settle in peace,
like a new morning.
I want my life back.
ahmama
IMG_6448
ohdeer

wwudeer2

Between Midnight and Dawn: Thirsting for God

barnstormingblog6 Comments

ahmama

As the deer pants for streams of water,
    so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
    When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food
    day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
    “Where is your God?”
~from Psalm 42

 

Empty and filled,
like the curling half-light of morning,
in which everything is still possible and so why not.

Filled and empty,
like the curling half-light of evening,
in which everything now is finished and so why not.

A root seeks water.
Tenderness only breaks open the earth.
This morning, out the window,
the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.
~Jane Hirschfield from “Standing Deer”

 

Most days, at some point, I start feeling thirsty.

Not for water, which, living in the northwest,  I’m fortunate to have close by at almost any moment.

Not for alcohol, which puts me to sleep and makes me too fuzzy to function after a couple of swallows.

Not for milk which was all I ever drank growing up on a farm with three Guernsey cows that produced more than a family of five could possibly consume in a day.

No, I’m ashamed to admit I thirst for a Starbucks mocha.  With whip.

No, I didn’t give it up for Lent.  I acknowledge it is not truly thirst I am feeling but only a desire. I’m not panting and dehydrated.  This is a want rather than a need.  I will not die without my mocha.

Like any psychological (or physical) addiction, it just feels as if I might.

Instead I should thirst daily for God with the same visceral fervor and singlemindedness.   If I could dive into His word daily and savor it like I do my mocha, I would be much less fluffy in stature, and much more solid in faith.

This psalm reminds me of my constant thirstiness and how no mocha, no glass of water, indeed nothing of this earth will truly slake it.  I must wait to meet the Lord to know what it feels like to no longer thirst and no longer want, and then all needs, indeed all desires, are fulfilled.

“You have made us for Yourself, and we cannot find rest until we find it in You.”  
~St. Augustine

wwudeer2

 

wwudeer1

 

During this Lenten season, I will be drawing inspiration from the new devotional collection edited by Sarah Arthur —Between Midnight and Dawn

Beyond Me, Darkness

barnstormingblog7 Comments

morningstorm2

 

morningstorm

evening1151514

Dawn comes later and later now,
and I, who only a month ago
could sit with coffee every morning
watching the light walk down the hill
to the edge of the pond and place
a doe there, shyly drinking,

then see the light step out upon
the water, sowing reflections
to either side — a garden
of trees that grew as if by magic —
now see no more than my face,
mirrored by darkness, pale and odd,

startled by time. While I slept,
night in its thick winder jacket
bridled the doe with a twist
of wet leaves and led her away,
then brought its black horse with harness
that creaked like a cricket, and turned

the water garden under. I woke,
and at the waiting window found
the curtains open to my open face;
beyond me, darkness. And I,
who only wished to keep looking out,
must now keep looking in.
~Ted Kooser “A Letter in October”

 

God knows we miss the light
these autumn mornings,
especially when a storm blows
wet and wild in the dark
beyond the window pane.
We only see ourselves
peering into the darkness.
God knows we need the light.

sunrisepond22115

morningclouds11815

gardenshedwindow

Her Pivoting Ear

barnstormingblog4 Comments

 

wwudeer2

same pair, two months ago

Near dusk, near a path, near a brook,
we stopped, I in disquiet and dismay
for the suffering of someone I loved,
the doe in her always incipient alarm.

All that moved was her pivoting ear
the reddening sun was shining through
transformed to a color I’d only seen
in a photo of a new child in a womb.

Nothing else stirred, not a leaf,
not the air, but she startled and bolted
away from me into the crackling brush.

The part of my pain which sometimes
releases me from it fled with her, the rest,
in the rake of the late light, stayed.
~C. K. Williams  “The Doe”

 

Oh little one
to have been born
in June over three decades ago
so wanted
so anticipated
but lost too soon
gone as swiftly
as a doe disappearing in a thicket,
a memory that makes me question
if you were real,
but you were
and you are
and someday
I’ll know you when I see you.

wwudeer1

sunset626153

The Winged Keys

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maplewings

febwoods

The set seed and the first bulbs showing.
The silence that brings the deer.

The trees are full of handles and hinges;
you can make out keyholes, latches in the leaves.

Buds tick and crack in the sun, break open
slowly in a spur of green.

*

The small-change colours of the river bed:
these stones of copper, silver, gold.

The rock-rose in the waste-ground
finding some way to bloom. The long

spill of birdsong. Flowers, all
turned to face the hot sky. Nothing stirs.

*

That woody clack of antlers.
In yellow and red, the many griefs of autumn.

The dawn light through amber leaves
and the trees are lanterned, blown

the next day to empty stars.
Smoke in the air; the air, turning.

*

Under a sky of stone and pink
faring in from the north and promising snow:

the blackbird.
In his beak, a victory of worms.

The winged seed of the maple,
the lost keys under the ash.
~Robin Robertson “Finding the Keys”

 

If only there were verbal keys as plentiful
as those that twirl from the maple branch,
words freed, ready to unlatch life’s secrets
and push ajar the doors of heavy hearts.

May we open just enough
to listen,
unlock horns,
and receive what falls
into our empty arms.

deerskull

deerrubbingtree

ferngrove

Like a Blessing Vanished

barnstormingblog1 Comment
wwudeer
above the construction zone on the south end of the Western Washington University campus

Empty and filled,
like the curling half-light of morning,
in which everything is still possible and so why not.

Filled and empty,
like the curling half-light of evening,
in which everything now is finished and so why not.

A root seeks water.
Tenderness only breaks open the earth.
This morning, out the window,
the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.
~Jane Hirschfield from “Standing Deer”

wwudeer2

And think I must fall on my knees
to see them standing there,
Breasting the misty tide,
Sniffing the misty air.
~Charles Norman from “The Deer”

same pair, two months ago
same doe and fawn, two months ago, on the WWU campus

An Incomplete Answer

barnstormingblog1 Comment

ahmamaHe loved to ask his mother questions. It was the pleasantest thing for him to ask a question and then to hear what answer his mother would give. Bambi was never surprised that question after question should come into his mind continually and without effort. 

Sometimes he felt very sure that his mother was not giving him a complete answer, was intentionally not telling him all she knew.  For then there would remain in him such a lively curiosity, such suspicion, mysteriously and joyously flashing through him, such anticipation, that he would become anxious and happy at the same time, and grow silent.
~Felix Salten from Bambi

fawn2

Where Minds and Gardens Grow

barnstormingblog4 Comments
hollyhock
hollyhock

fawns3

As I go between meetings on the Western Washington University Campus in Bellingham, Washington, I can’t help but admire the work of the stewards of the gardens and landscape, as well as some of the four legged visitors.  These are iPhone photos, taken on the run.

cornbee
cornflower and pollinator
officially a weed but lovely nonetheless
officially a weed but lovely nonetheless
hollyhock
hollyhock

wwuberry

wwuborder

rainyrose
rose garden outside Old Main after a shower
rainyrose2
rose garden
wwuvariegation
geranium outside the Academic Instructional Center
wwugrasses
hedge of ornamental grasses near the Rec Center
wwusoft
Hollyhock seed pods
berryblack
blackberries sneak in here and there
wwuborder2
ornamental hedge berries
wwugeranium2
geranium
wwuseedpod
nigella seed pods
lacey4
Queen Anne’s Lace with its “bruised” center

wwupink

wwuscallop

zinniapatch
zinnia patch

WWUpinkcover

cascadeWWU