A few days ago I woke up to six more inches of snow and surprise tracks at the back door. I could see them from the kitchen. I live right in town, and a small town at that. It takes about 2 minutes to get to the country, and even from my back yard I can turn east and see Lamborn mountain, covered with snow. But even so, large four legged visitors are not that common jumping fences and strolling up to my back door, walking to the grape bower and sniffing out last fall’s fallen grapes, making figure eights in the side lawn before leaving again.
We could have been nose to nose! I imagine the deer in the night time, walking up to the glass of the door, and maybe even getting a whiff of the big bowl of black walnuts still in their hulls, on the bench just inside…


They remind me, as it happens being human, of the lines of a poem. This one is from my first year of college.
Six hours to Minneapolis ~
Two small doe
dip to the cornfield
beneath the hang of communication wires
lacing Minnesota with the world
like ballet slippers to legs.
One deer raises its slim head,
ears cupping
towards the whirl of tires over highway.
Our eyes sweep the pink horizon
from behind blurred windows–
reaching beyond it to the city lights with
destinations scattered as the past, yet gathered
to our beginnings
as tree branches into their trunks. Drawn together
by a meshing of lines:
the veins streaking through our mothers’ bodies
toward a connecting cord, roots
drawing life from the earth,
ribboning roads pathing us
to where we are today.
The delicate trails of deer through snowflight

I love walking in winter through snow. There is no mistaking where you have been.
Oh, you know I love this post! It reminds me of the little doe tracks that Daisy deer made so many times around our house! Isn’t the snow just amazing!
(Smile) I was thinking you might! Oh how I love to follow Daisy in your blog posts, and I’m excited there may be little fawn footprints around your house some day! Thank you so much.
Beautiful! Both the photos and the poem..
Thank you Putney Farm! So glad you enjoyed the post. It was a gift that snowy morning!