Another damned bill to pay, and I turn into the Shaw parking lot.
Pylons spaced six feet apart on the walk before the door,
a masked clerk waiting outside with her Covid questions ready.
I step towards her, but no, she’s pointing across the lot.
When I turn to look, I see, beyond the Shaw ladder truck,
giant spools of orange cable in the plot by the river,
wild grass and unkempt bushes, the land gone back to nature.
A sudden movement beyond the brush, a white-tail doe raising
her head, three fawns close beside her, nibbling leaves.
All four pause, watching me, their eyes brown and wide.
Trucks grind by on Manitoba Street, but here, the clerk and I,
gripped by the moment, stand motionless and stare.
© Robert Currie
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
Photo Credit:
A white-tail fawn, still in its speckled camouflage coat. Photo by Clay Heaton, Wikimedia Commons.
Did you know ..
A female deer usually produces two dappled offspring in late May or early June and keeps close watch over them through their first winter. White-tails expanded into Saskatchewan in the 1880s, taking advantage of habitats created by farming and urbanization. Mule deer prefer natural grasslands, including Saskatoon’s Northeast Swale.
Author: Robert Currie
Robert Currie is a former Poet Laureate of Saskatchewan and the author of twelve books, both fiction and poetry, most recently The Days Run Away and One-Way Ticket. He lives with his wife, Gwen, in Moose Jaw where they often walk in the Wakamow Valley and the Tatawaw Park.
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