It was your instincts that made me turn

To see what I might not have seen at all:

A slight shift in filtered patterns of light

And shadow visible out the window

Down the hill at the bottom of the yard.

Colors, shading were so subtle – was it

Just a trick of the breeze or light, mocking

Perceptions the eye takes for truth? But there!

She moved again, and I could see her eyes

Turn in my direction, soft and deep brown,

As if to answer my admiring gaze,

And then, with graceful indifference, settled

Deeper in artful repose, ears perked up

As the only evident sentinels

Alert to signals of danger, yet deaf

To sounds from the freeway mere yards away.

I marveled at this doe, alone against

The city’s roar, yet seeming so at peace

With herself and the world around her. Still,

I thought of companions I saw her with

Other times, threading the path to the lake

With awkward fawns in tow — where were they now?

I wished them in groves near the cool water

Resting in groups like those in an eighteenth

Century landscape, but I could not chase

Away visions of bodies by roadsides,

Limp and lifeless. Turning back to present

Time, I saw her again, but now a gentle,

Four-legged Buddha, beneath a chestnut.

A bright aura of enlightenment danced

In the mottled shade of nodding branches.

Bill Kester

March 31, 2004