The Wild Deer At Armonk Poem by Richard Cole

On the corporate hilltops outside New York
we organize and soar—sharpening
our pencils, checking off lists, accruing
whatever the visible world requires.

Outside on the lawn, wild deer press
cautiously through the patchwork of late
snow, quiet as the moon,
to nibble at the thin, expensive saplings
we traded for the woods.

Ghosts rise up out of our bodies
like laundry, sway and look around, still
hungry for the joy of finishing.

The deer approach dark windows, as lost
in the starving spring
as we would be without them.
They would help us provide. They would
feed from our hand if we let them.