Living with wild

Could this doe be the fawn who was born here, in woods just beyond our house? She certainly makes herself at home, especially in my garden.

This Morning's Three Wishes

I wish the long-necked doe – on-alert

in the neighbor’s field – and her two spotted fawns –

in my field – could find a way over-under-thru

the stockwire fence that keeps them apart –

the buck-child brave adventurer given to sudden dashes

across landscape, his little sister timid, remembering

her lessons of hiding motionless while mother

forages somewhere distant; the doe who savages

my garden just as it was getting a thriving start,

zucchini, cucumber, tomato vines heady and brave

as a buck-fawn to conquer the world.

But that’s four wishes already –

for the mother doe, the bravo-boy buck,

the gentle little girl-fawn,

and alas, my garden.

Which wish shall I give up?

~ Taylor Graham