Fawn Crossing

Last evening Phinnie and I watched the little fawn and doe cross Galla Meadow. Phinnie barked sharply at the intruders but they knew he was short legged and only looked his way and then put their heads back down to graze the green grass. Funny how they knew he was too small to really do anything. At one time, when I saw the deer I was angry as they eyed my field peas--that and sweet potato vines are a favorite snack. But last night they made me smile just like I felt this morning when Laura brought me a pumpkin muffin to enjoy with my coffee!
The Fawn
Edna St. Vincent Millay

There it was I saw what I shall never forget
And never retrieve.
Monstrous and beautiful to human eyes, hard to
believe,
He lay, yet there he lay,
Asleep on the moss, his head on his polished cleft
small ebony hooves,
The child of the doe, the dappled child of the deer.

Surely his mother had never said, "Lie here
Till I return," so spotty and plain to see
On the green moss lay he.
His eyes had opened; he considered me.

I would have given more than I care to say
To thrifty ears, might I have had him for my friend
One moment only of that forest day:

Might I have had the acceptance, not the love
Of those clear eyes;
Might I have been for him in the bough above
Or the root beneath his forest bed,
A part of the forest, seen without surprise.

Was it alarm, or was it the wind of my fear lest he
depart
That jerked him to his jointy knees,
And sent him crashing off, leaping and stumbling
On his new legs, between the stems of the white
trees?