Parker, Where Are You?

Now that the forests are losing fresh foliage, the deer are bold, even to the point of living in my yard. Early Tuesday morning, I turned on my headlights and saw a buck lying in the grass with three does, standing by, eating the leftovers of my snowball bush.

Yesterday, this one stared at me through the rails of deck.
Tonight I saw my former student Parker, who, when he got home, went right back out to see if he could get a deer with his bow. When I first met him seven years ago, I didn't understand his fascination with hunting, but I encouraged him to write about his obsession anyway. Now, I wish I could invite him to come to my house and pick them off one by one.

It's a strange thing to have a love/hate relationship with an animal that is only doing what it must: survive. If I hadn't bought the plants they eat, I'm not sure I'd feel the hate because my admiration for their dignified silence far outweighs the cost of plants with which I try to rearrange nature.

May nature say deer and let me love their surprisingly large ears and deep eyes and velvety coats and capacity for standing and standing still and still.