fawn

yester day
i counted more than 30 species of birds, here
first, i kept a running list in my head
then, i made a google doc to share

and i didn’t even know there was an organized
bird migration count happening
until after the fact /

this morning,
it finally felt
vernal
warm, new air,
a gentle breeze
the exact kind of day to find a fawn nested in the tall grasses around a mulberry or walnut tree
while her mother is off foraging

every one is being born today
every one is dying today

somewhere

it seems //

i can’t remember what it feels like to be a beloved daughter
i can’t remember what it feels like to be a loving daughter

now, repeat those sentences with the word mother instead of daughter

everything is drifting,
has drifted

every thing is being pulled away,
has pulled away

the gravity of me is no longer enough
to hold these familiar bodies in orbit

in a system of we,
in a galaxy of us,

we existed,

only on paper, i think.

but not on kodak paper; you hated

both portraits & candids,

& taught me to hate them too/

and today,

on “World Migratory Bird Day”

the May Plow arrived even as every one is

gestating,
laboring,
birthing,
nesting,
laying,

birds, turtles, deer,
chipmunks,
wild turkeys, cranes,
geese and snakes

the timing of these men with their machines is so detached

from the cycle of Earthling life:

mothering,
arriving,
hatching,
latching,
nursing
feeding

raising and rearing.

protecting.

the products of men with their machines are fertilized with phosphate, nitrogen, ammonia, urea
unironically sourced from the Fertile Crescent
shipped via the Strait of Hormuz
because their forefathers, not foremothers, strip-mined the soil of Turtle Island, barren, a hundred years or more, ago

you manifested your destiny !!

so,

happy-and-proud Semiquincentennial,
dear western european Whitey ////

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contemplating intent, consent, kill lists and ceasefire: deer hunting season, regular firearm, November 15 – 30, 2024 Michigan, U.S.


“The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality.”

Arthur Schopenhauer.


a white-tailed deer drinks from a bird bath,
which was presumed to be of exclusive use of songbirds — especially, eastern bluebirds,
on the land the author occupies
Halloween 2024
“all treatery, no trickery”

Regular firearm, deer hunting season began yesterday in Michigan, United States of America, and the crack of rifles and the blast of shotguns destroy both peace and life.

There is some version of a legalized, defined kill list or belated, legalized “protection list” for nearly every non-human animal being population on Earth. And, for human animal being populations on Earth too.

What defines murder for human beings, of the human animal body?

INTENT.

All Hunting is INTENT – intent to kill.

All animal “livestock” agriculture is INTENT — intent to kill for profit.

Genocide is INTENT.

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deer hunting season | regular firearm, November 15 – 30, 2023, Michigan, U.S.

the gunshot
crisp, startling
a radiating crackle
floating on the unusually warm autumn air

my dog bolts for the house, and once inside, takes cover under the desk – this is a natural response to explosives

fear, confusion, rage, sorrow course through my marrow — we are made of the same stuff

then i remember that deer-stalking-luring-and-killing with a gun season started today

i’d seen the dignified six-point buck head south earlier,
the same direction of the blast / i realize that he may be dead, now

then i remember that i haven’t seen the
doe and her playful and curious fawns
in over a month’s time

on my way to the highway entrance ramp,
i avoid the main roads
where the bodies of two deer lay dead
a half mile apart
/ i pretend they can’t be, that they aren’t my familiars /

the deer always seem to be lying just barely off the road

do they collapse and die there identically — or does someone drag them there by their legs or antlers; are there protocols for this?
what does the weight of a dead deer body or dead human body feel like in the hands? are the dead heavier? would i be able to drag a deer or human body? maybe — in my heyday
i have only ever held dead rabbits, squirrels, birds, fish in my own two hands

then i remember that our first dog was euthanized at home, in the back yard, in the June Sun, but it was not me who lifted and carried his body away / why didn’t i carry him? back then, i was in my strength heyday.

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