Don's Blog Dear Deer 12-3-25

Begin forwarded message:

From: Don Sessions <bigdonsessions@gmail.com>

Subject: Don's Blog Dear Deer 12-3-25

Date: December 3, 2025 at 10:11:21 AM CST

As you know the deer and I have had a complex relationship this year. The herd of 11 that used to stay in the woods behind the meadow of the back yard is now regularly eating my front garden flowers. They even bed down in the day lilies. But that is balanced by their sheer magnificence. This invasion of the dear but hungry  deer is also occurring at the lake house. Here is a new friend who has been hanging out there lately.

He struts around knowing I am there. 

And later looking closer at the picture I see a surprise that I didn't even see when I took the image. Beautiful,yes?

But don't forget that this young child can sometimes grow up to be frightening.

        The Deer

You never know.

The body of night opens

like a river, it drifts upward like white smoke,

like so many wrappings of mist.
And on the hillside two deer are walking along
just as though this wasn't

the owned, tilled earth of today
but the past.
I did not see them the next day, or the next,

but in my mind's eye –
there they are, in the long grass,
like two sisters.

This is the earnest work. Each of us is given
only so many mornings to do it –
to look around and love

the oily fur of our lives,
the hoof and the grass-stained muzzle.
Days I don't do this

I feel the terror of idleness,
like a red thirst.
Death isn't just an idea.

When we die the body breaks open
like a river;
the old body goes on, climbing the hill.

Mary Olliver