Saturday, May 21, 2016



                                              Listen Long and Well

            I can't imagine ever seeing a more tender and vulnerable moment than the one we just saw this evening. It's dark. Only the firefly stragglers are still about, either high in the air, the better to see and be seen, or nestling on the forest floor singly or alongside another pulse of light. It's bedtime, but not quite yet for everyone.

            We walk up the hill along the driveway to the road edge to see if the full moon is about to rise, but it's too early. That the moon rises almost an hour later each day is one of our world's most intriguing charms, the moon individuating from the sun's and Earth's greater attention to regularity, at least from our point of view.
            As we turned back toward the thick forest where we live, acres of a downsloping fantail rolling toward a creek, a slight movement caught our attention and we looked leftward into the distant neighboring cottage's outdoor spray of light. A small doe steps slowly through a slight clearing, part brightly lit and part silhouette, followed only two-feet behind by the tiniest fawn, so newborn that her posture is still slightly hunched and her gait delicate.
            Doe stops and stares, her big ears poised directly at us. I often hardly know my own thoughts but could swear hers were, 'Please, no'. She then vanishes into the woods ahead followed by her tiny dear shiny dancer. Tonight we listen long and well, hoping to be of service if needed and praying we're not.

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                                                                   Mother and daughter