At Twilight
Yesterday at twilight as I crossed the lawn
something moved above my field of vision.
Up where woods' edge slopes to lilac bushes,
children's sandbox, kitchen windows.
In that zone between the secrecy of forest
and the known of human dwelling,
three deer: two doe, one halfgrown fawn,
stood still as trees in trees' grey shadow.
Longlegged bandits from the forest,
wary eyed, curious and hungry,
they had come to browse the garden:
mint, tomato plants, sweet basil,
tender leaves of newly sprouted spinach.
Hours in the mud spent digging, planting,
weeding, moving stones, seemed unimportant
to defend against such beauty.
For this I would have planted twenty gardens
Grace was what I needed more than food.
No comments:
Post a Comment