The Doe

On a warm evening, walking the dog
near the pasture, I saw an unusual event
unfold in the distance:
a doe and fawn, chased by a coyote;
to keep up 
with its moghter running for her life,
the fawn fell. 
The coyote approached the injoured fawn;
my dog, free from my grip, dashed to the 
predator, howling; the coyote fled.
To examine the injoured one, I got closer,
and it limped away to its mom
watching us from afar. 

When the young buck with the limp leg,
excluded by his group,
the doe joined him walking in the night,
foraged together in the pasture or my yard.

The doe and the buck with crippled back leg
and lovely antlers; the nightly visitors,
now, enjoy a midnight snack on
the leaves of my apple tree. The buck, 
his antlers reaching for the moon, his mouth 
to the apple in the tree; an art of nature.

As I watch them in the moonlight, in awe,
for her motherly love, tears well in my eyes.
How long? She doesn't care; she just lives in the
momentary joy. But she knows instictively
that her care for her son in the season will pay off;
her son is well nourished and fat for the winter.
The night stealthily moves on, and they trot off
into the light of dawn. 

This piece is published in the Avocet, a journal of Nature Poetry,
Summer printed issue, 2022.
© Byung A. Fallgren