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…

surprise tracks at my back door

surprise tracks at my back door!

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

the delicate trails of deer through snowflight

I love walking in winter through snow. There is no mistaking where you have been.