“Often, the deer watch me, branches as masks. Today, it was a young white pine the doe chose. She didn’t know that I knew the fawn was beside her, low in the dry stream bed, but I did. They walked on together and I, alone. What do I make of the rabbits in the grassy meadows? How are there so many, so complacent? Isn’t this fox-certainty, coyote-certainty wonderful in the way it teaches gratitude for clover and love of a moment?”

~ from RidgeLines: A View of Nature and Human Nature