A Fond Farewell To Summer
Before dawn a small doe
glides down our street
lightly as a fog from the sea.
She samples impatiens and calendulas,
nibbles nasturtiums, fuschias, peonies,
while the floppy-flewed hounds
dream of Alpo and Purina
on their plaid, cedar-lined beds.
She is seen only by the delivery man,
who is more concerned with flinging
newspapers into the bushes,
under lawn sprinklers, sometimes
even onto the driveways (under cars).
As the last stars fade,
she seeks the brushy woodlots
and things begin to return to abnormal,
engines snorting into combative life,
patrolling streets and highways,
far faster than running, with continual thunder,
while the doe rests by the brushy oak,
flicks ears at flies and gnats,
now and again tasting a leaf.
She quietly grows a fawn
also to be born into
this strange land.