Deer Story

I look out of my kitchen window

past the clubhouse and the school across

the way. There, a stand of pine trees shiver

from side-to-side under rain clouds, gray curls

that form a sodden backdrop for the wavering trees.

A chocolate wind picks up spinning dirt over the barren meadow

and there, beneath the shaky pines, a group of somber faces with pointy

ears and staring eyes watch as their homestead is demolished. 

Their beds are scratchy pine needles 

wringing wet from the downpour. Sharp enough to pierce hide.

I saw one limping the other day, unable to keep up. 

Today, they have been silent, vigilant from their prickly beds

as a big yellow Cat sinks its front loader into their grange

digging, digging. Another Cat with long yellow neck and sharp teeth

lifts titanic boulders from the yielding range dumping them into

a pile where they will be broken, blasted into small lumps. The noise! The noise!

Pounding and constant.

Another yellow Cat. This one moves slowly, little by little, 

a snail's pace drubbing the earth, hammering the dirt down

readying it for the foundation of a brand new "facility." 

Today, rain caused progress to halt, a stay. 

But the meadow is gone.

The deer. The deer.