Visitors

Beastly shadows stretch across the yard: stilted black bodies engorged by distortion.  Sleek animals, one large and one small, search for acorns in the thick snow beneath our giant oaks, casting the black umbras.

Winter hunger has driven them into our domestic neighborhood from the wild.  I step slowly toward the picture window for a better view of these gentle wilderness creatures come to visit in the deep night. 

Wary by nature, the larger one’s head darts up with a look of alarm focused in my direction.  Within seconds, the younger one mirrors its elder’s pose. Softly haloed, these stately statues stand in the glow of our neighbor’s security light.

Two on one side of the glass and one on the other, we jointly stand frozen in a timeless moment.

Suddenly they bolt as if from a race’s starting gate, and leap with tails flashing white to find retreat in the woodlands across the road.  I imagine them there, safe but still hungry, and regret the terror evoked by my passive presence.  

“What happened, Mother?” the young Bambi asks.

“Mankind…MANKIND…” Bambi’s mother answers.