Deer

Seeing them used to be a gift
of early morning or twilight.
Where cornfields broke into timber,
they stood unmoving in the dim
safe light, so seldom there we knew
it took luck and strain to find them.

Now there are too many. We count
ten one night in the neighbor's yard
and another one startled back
into brush across the lit road.
They have eaten a litany
of what we hate to lose: roses,
geraniums, the new plum tree
Randy planted along the fence.

Ruined, he says. He would shoot them
if he could. Still, who can blame them?
Ground that once held corn holds houses.
Their feet and mouths no doubt confused
by gardens and the strange clipped grass.
How different the tame must taste.

 

Poems by Melody Lacina: