“Hier hinein?...Man sieht den Weg nicht...Wie silbern die Stämme schimmern...wie Birken!...”

Wandering
in the pathless wood
amidst the silvery shimmering strains
of birches
subdued by ice storms
or boys too far from town
she searches for the deer
(dear?)
that bounced off her hood
on a dark rainy evening
that would have been
a metaphor
if the roads weren’t so slick.

The deer, too,
could have been metaphor
or at least a totem.
When she was courting
she saw two piebald deer
on her way home from a date,
symbols of transformation
and the spirit world.

This evening
she had been driving slowly,
carefully,
on account of the rain.
There was oncoming traffic
so she couldn’t swerve to the left.

The rain had washed
most of the bug carcasses
from the windshield
and the visibility
was as good as could be
expected.

There was no sign
of the wounded animal
besides the smashed headlight,
and the buckled hood
adorned with
bits of deer hair,
as she searched
the pathless wood.