Mast Year
After long drought,
the white oak
drops its acorns,
double, triple
a rainy year.
Under its broad limbs,
the three-legged doe
stumps along, her right
front leg sheared off
below her knee,
victim of a car,
stump hole,
black rocks in
the shallow creek
behind my house
she crosses to get here.
Who knows. I see her at
the crack of dawn
or pith of day, flanked
by last year’s twins
and this year’s singleton,
its spots faded by
November, its coat
like hers turned gray.
He butts her udder,
ramming hard. She
accepts that, eyes
trained on the woods.
A hunter in camouflage
sees a damaged doe.
Cull the herd, he thinks,
draws a bead, shoots.
By Judith Stanton
From The Deer Diaries
2/18/11
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