Deer Poem Emerges from the Underbrush

Here’s the poem that came from the notes in my last blog. I thought you’d like to see what happened next. The Superbowl left the poem. Computer pornography left the poem. The mall-guys got hold of me and put themselves into it, almost co-stars, with their tattoos and nose rings, all of which struck me as being very much like the deer—skittish, afraid of being seen—really seen, that is—in their teenage angst and their primal needs. Like the deer with their white tails elevated, that dignity.I realized that as I watched the deer, I was really concerned with distance: ours from them, ours from other people, ours from other countries. The “us” became a lot more than just the two of us on the deck, but we’re guilty, the two on the deck. We don’t know what to do, but we know all of our conversations about what should be done are just that—conversations, somewhat self-righteous.I let “It was all innocent, which it wasn’t” –my intended first line—to spread itself out differently in the poem. If it came first, there’d be nothing yet to attach itself to.Sometimes I have a generalization that jolts the poem into being, but then I need to get rid of it. Sometimes it’s the other way around. My friend Jeanne Walker and I used to talk about when you need a generalization and when not. I think you need to say something general at the beginning of a poem when the reader MUST have a way to read what follows. The reverse is often true, that you need one later, after the concreteness has built up and somehow needs a voice of consolidation, or reflection. Sometimes you may not need a generalization at all, when the poem itself becomes its own metaphor.DeerIt was the deer. Or the raccoon lumbering awayfrom the feeder. It was America, pretending to beinnocent. I wanted to show you the deer becausewe like to point out the wildness on our land,as if the animals chose us from among contendersfor our purity of soul. The red foxes especially, the shierthe better, to show how far we are from MacDonalds,from Hummers. I wanted you to count the deerwith me, to agree that we love the world, the onethat can’t be bought.Some days the sun disguises things.What’s missing out there burns in our eyes.We rant about politics. We feel like survivorsfrom a dangerous life. We enter books, looking notfor foxes but for accurate punctuation, a good phrase.We want to be part of something lovely. We lovethe idea of deer—remember when there were twelveroaming along the creek-bank in the snow? Maybe notin snow. The snow stands for the page, how farthey have to travel to get here, how we can’tturn them away no matter what our heartsare like, because of their alertness. We need themfor an alarm, for the terrible unnatural strangers.The kids smoking outside the mall on a school dayare like those deer. They have muscles they might useat any minute. They’re perfectly made for escape.Meanwhile, we live with these windows,this deck, and the wandering of animals.We watch TV. It’s ridiculous the way we sit here,the way we talk, as if possibilities for relieving the poor,stopping the war, were public, waiting, longingto be enacted. Tails go up like flags. Under the tails,the fierce smell, a dignity. Who knows what to do,when everything keeps so far from us? Blatant pitch here: You can find this poem in Loon Cry, my collection of Michigan poems. Buy it directly from The Watershed Center ( http://www.gtbay.org/ or dbaker@gtbay.org  or 231~935~1514, ext. 4.). Every dime you spend on the book goes directly to support that non-profit organization.