Six or seven, perhaps no older in deer years

Than this fawn stepping from the edge

Of the woods and climbing up the laddered

Light on the grass, on leaves older than I,

Looking toward the road where I walked

On the hump down the middle of one lane

Of deep dust, arms held out and holding on

To the horizon for purchase, balancing

Like the crows above the corn-green haze

Hanging over the field;

                                               then the startled flick

Of its ears, one twiggy leg lifted and held

So still I could see the curved cleft of hoof.

And in that motionless moment a warning

Is sounded in silence to the doe a few yards

Farther back who lifts her tail, and another,

Deeper in the woods, rubbing her arched back

Against the bark of trees I had no names for

Then, turns toward that gesture and enters

Into it, without a sound, without moving.

Sixty years we are held, apart and together,

In this one revelation, on the one road we

Ever get between innocence and intimacy.