The hot sky, a cloudy, threadbare quilt, hangs low over the valley.
Weeks of relentless heat have etched their signature into the land. Grass shatters underfoot. Soil splits into parched canyons. But this morning carries something new – a scent, a weight, a whisper that rain might come.
My wheelchair, silent as thought, carries me to where the lawn meets thicket. Here, where the mower blade cut too deep, new green life emerges – tender shoots unseen since spring’s gentle days.
They come.
The mother doe steps cautiously from the cover of the overgrown bamboo– that green invader planted by gardeners who couldn’t foresee its hunger. Twin fawns follow, their chocolate coats still bearing childhood’s speckled stamp.
I sit still as stone. The deer approach, knowing my scent yet remaining forever wild. Ears flick messages. Nostrils read the air’s stories. Each hoof tests earth with delicate precision as they move toward the pale shoots —perfect food for fawns who’ve only known their mother’s milk, but must soon learn to eat thorns.
Winter waits for them with its hungry moon. Hunters ignore property lines. Ticks carry fever. SUVs speed. Few will survive more than a handful of seasons. But today, in this gossamer moment between birth and the waiting world, they are princes and princesses of the sun-dappled forest.
Balanced on stems more than legs, they mirror their mother’s every gesture. She pauses, head raised, reading the air’s shifting text. Finding no danger written there, she returns to grazing. Her children explore on uncertain limbs, tasting new flavors, always held within her watchful eyes.
Morning deepens. The gauzy sky begins to burn away. There will be no rain today. The deer vanish into the cooler shadows, leaving behind only bent grass and trimmed undergrowth as signs of their passing.