The night before I came across
this water-washed sculpture
made of the roots of a tree
and time and weather,
I watched a great buck
with a multi-pointed crown
slowly climb the western hill,
listening, watching, the first
I’ve seen this season.
“A deer.” The word sprang
to my mind the moment
I saw this graceful figure,
hewn from a tree, here by the creek.
I stepped closer, taking in
the creation’s lines and texture
and colors, the sorts of things
I learned to notice last winter
when that was all that was left
to see. And now the season
of such seeing begins again
and something eager rises
within me.