Bolts between
raindrops
stag poses in
silhouette
snagged in
the suburbs
That’s what I
saw the other night while walking the dog in between thunder storms. It wasn't just a visual scene. More layered than merely something I saw with my eyes. Beautiful
animal pausing on the slight hill in front of Oak Park High.
The new development in
our area confuses the deer. Confuses me, too. My head knows that cities grow on
land—that my own property might once have had buffalo grazing on it. And yet, I
can’t help feeling sad about this change, about concrete replacing wildflowers,
about street names replacing birds. A buffalo sculpture welcomes
drivers into the new development—a homage to what was.
The deer that still roam
in frightened confusion won’t pause in front of the metal statues of the wild
life of the past. They don’t appreciate the irony of iron sculptures. Only we
humans can see that the deer of this neighbourhood have been evicted—their land
expropriated for us humans. Someday we’ll name a street after them, or maybe build a sculpture. And like the buffalo…we’ll wonder where they all went. To
last night’s stag…long may you roam.
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