From the hot tub

I see the deer

atop the northern hill

a small herd

big racked buck

in silhouette.

When I look next

they’re gone

but the song goes on.

I soak under the gray

shadowed dawn

the world awakening

to its hungers and griefs

their calls companion

to my solitude.

Later, in my room

kneeling in prayer

for this life of love

and loss I hear them

still in the rapture

of communion.

What they take

Oh Lord of light

and dark, sustains them.

Would that it were so

for us.