To Deer in the City

 I’m running down a street one neighborhood over and out of a clump of bushes near the sidewalk, a little brown head pokes out. A dog? Long nose, brown face. And then, a silent woosh of the branches and you step out. You’re young, maybe a few months old. You’re not wobbly anymore, but you lack the grace of a full grown deer. You don’t see me as you bolt across the street.

"Rothirsch Spießer Auge 2007-08-16 131" by BS Thurner Hof - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rothirsch_Spie%C3%9Fer_Auge_2007-08-16_131.jpg#/media/File:Rothirsch_Spie%C3%9Fer_Auge_2007-08-16_131.jpg

Another deer, an adult this time, breaks out and follows you. And another and another. All together, five deer running across the street and between the houses. A couple seem to see me and zig zag a bit, dart away faster. They follow you through 4 yards, past newly trimmed lawn edges and sculpted shrubs. Neat rows of impatiens. Tightly coiled hoses in the corner of the yard. SUV’s parked in the driveways. So civilized.

You lead them to the end of the street, where a large grove of new growth oak trees forms a fence for a shallow ravine. You break away down towards the water, meager and dark as it is. One by one, the others tuck themselves in behind you. I run past after you and even though I stop, I can’t see you anymore. I hear the traffic on Merriman, one street over.

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/zombieite/15256628308/

Though I was alone, I didn’t feel alone until you vanished. The way silence, broken by a bell or a boom, is stronger when the sound stops. A void, filled and then emptied, seems larger. I miss the wild in me.