INEXPERIENCED HUMAN INTERPRETING THE WILD

A doe is standing in the grass watching Willie sprinkle corn on the flagstone path behind my house. The deer is no more than four feet from this human being, but Willie radiates gentle kindness, and her ears register no concern.

He is focused on what he is distributing, and she knows it will be hers when he is gone. Willie has left food for her before, but not where I can see everything happening right out my window.

As he leaves, he smiles at me, jerking his thumb toward the doe, who is already moving toward the corn.

Reaching the flagstones, she is now directly under my window, and my god, this is a lovely creature. I watch as she lowers her head to eat. I turn away no more than a second or two, and when I look back, there is a fawn leaning against her. Out of nowhere.

I have never been so close to these wild creatures before. That I know of, anyway. If the window were open, I could touch them.

Blown away by their nearness, their beauty, I am awestruck, slack-jawed. I can’t take my eyes off them. I don’t know how they manage to pick up such small kernels using only their mouths. They never pause, eating kernel after kernel after kernel, and I begin to realize this is not necessarily pleasure, it is a job, part of the work of staying alive.

Suddenly they jerk their heads up, ears pricked, looking around, but otherwise motionless. This is the living definition of alert. Was it a sound? A smell? Several moments pass, then they drop their heads again for the corn.

Meanwhile, my dog Olive is now standing on my chair, whining, watching, and desperate to get out. Olive is all about the chase. I know she will never catch either one, I doubt very much that she wants to.

I wait until the all corn is gone, the flagstones are bare. The deer stand still, maybe waiting to be certain of safety before they move. I knock on the window to give them a headstart, and then I let Olive out, already barking her head off. She can’t follow them very far. We have an underground electric fence.

Olive is fast, but deer are much faster and they are already bounding away, white tails in the air. This must be where the phrase high-tailing it comes from.

These particular deer have been around the block a few times. By now they know exactly how far Olive will go before she stops short, and a foot or two beyond that is where the deer stop too, before strolling across the quiet street into a slender patch of woods. Olive watches them go.

The word “strolling” arrived after I thought about “moseying,” but deer are too graceful to mosey, or “sashaying,” which was an all too human attitude to give them. So “stroll” won out. But I can’t help interpreting their unhurried gait as throwing Olive a bit of shade.

And I can’t keep that to myself.