On Finding a Dead Deer in My Backyard
By Nolo Segundo
May 5, 2025
May 5, 2025
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I saw them a few weeks ago. My wife called me, something urgent—
so I left the computer and went to see what so excited her. Three deer, 3 young deer meandering around our ¼ acre backyard. They look thin, she said—I agreed (not saying it was not a good sign with winter coming near). We enjoyed watching them through our plate glass door, their casual grace, that elegance of walk deer have when unafraid. They were special, even more than the occasional cardinal alighting in our yard like a breathing ruby with wings—so we stayed as still as possible. I told her that deer can only see what moves, so we held ourselves tight like insensate statues. Two of these white-tailed beauties grazed daintily on the ground but the third was drawn to our giant holly tree, resplendent with its myriad red berries, like necklaces thrown capricious. I was concerned—something alarming about even deer drawn like the proverbial moth—safe, I wondered, for deer or tree? The triplets soon left our yard, as casually as they had come, and a week went by—then one day a single deer came back. I say back because she went straight for the holly tree, and I banged on the plate glass door and yelled as fierce as an old man can yell to scare off the now unwanted intruder, for something told me the holly tree would be death to the deer. She fled, but the next day came back again, again alone, and again with eyes only for that tree, an Eve that could not say no to the forbidden fruit—or berries or leaves it appears. Again I chased her away, and for a few days saw no return. Then one brisk morning our neighbor called—he saw what we could not see in the deep green thickness of that holly tree. The doe lay sleeping under its canopy (so death always seems with animals, unlike a human corpse where something is gone), killed it seemed by berries or the leaves of the innocent tree. I called my township—they said, put the carcass by the street, we’ll send someone to pick it up—but I couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Not just because I walk with a cane, and am old and unsure how such a moving would be done—no, no, it was more— when I saw the deer lying sheltered beneath the tree it loved, the tree it died for, it seemed a sacred place, consecrated— and I could not bring myself to violate nature’s holy ground. |
Nolo Segundo is the pen name of a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia] who became a late blooming poet in his 8th decade published in over 240 literary journals in 21 countries on 4 continents and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, thrice for Best of the Net.