We Met a Deer

 We met a deer beside the wooded trail 
 over the cape and east of the highway. 
 I used to walk that way with my boys 
 when they were young and eager. 
 It is a long walk for a five year old. 
 Miles away. 

 Was it even possible to walk home 
 the way we’d come? We never did. 
 We returned north on the highway 
 and through the tunnel, a scary path 
 for any age. By then we were exhilarated, 
 high on adventure and adrenaline, and eager 
 to get home. 

 The deer was afraid in her forest. She stood 
 silent, still, breathing the same air we held 
 in our chests. She willed us not to see.
 We stood still, silent, on the narrow trail 
 above her. We watched, holding breath. 
 We had been climbing for only a short time, 
 up the north slope among alder trees, 
 a lighter green than the spruce and hemlock 
 we would find higher still. 

 There is no leveling off 
 on that early path, 
 it is all up, then steeply down, 
 always up on the right 
 as we climb. Moss, ferns, mud, 
 the dripping moisture. 
 Then the Dark Fortress. 
 Here at the crest, the land 
 slopes steeply downhill 
 on our right. Dry. The path 
 nearly level. Evergreens 
 grow darkly close together, 
 like a crowd of giants’ legs, 
 like a maze of massive pillars 
 grown black and silent. 
 We are near the ocean, 
 a hundred meters above 
 the highway, but while we stand 
 and listen, we hear nothing. 
 The ground is thirsty here
 and deep in duff, the dead 
 needles of the spruce 
 and hemlock trees, dropped 
 a thousand million times, 
 over a thousand seasons. 
 Silent. 

 The deer stood silent as if 
 her stillness might make her safe. 

 And then she turned her head,
 was gone.

 We moved on ourselves. We climbed 
 and counted mushrooms. We walked up 
 and up and up past creeks and perching birds 
 and then through darkness, quiet, 
 and finally down and down and down 
 and through young alders to pavement 
 again. We had listened for the highway, 
 for the ocean, for the sound 
 of our own footsteps, my little boys 
 and me. Everything so still 
 and far away. Quiet,

 until we are safe at home, and all
 our chatter and heat returns.
 Milk and brownies as reward
 for our long walk. “And we saw 
 a deer,” they say. 

 It was years ago. Perhaps my boys
 would not recall that day. 
 They are grown men and too far away
 for me to ask. 

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