How to Love a Wolf: my dear/deer friends, March 24, 2020

How to Love a Wolf: my dear/deer friends

Tonight after a late dinner I stepped outside on the porch and leaned against one of the pillars. I heard a rustle in the low grass just ahead of me and saw the body of a deer,

caught and staring at me. Wondering. I whispered “it’s OK.“ I repeated: it’s OK, it’s OK, it’s OK, a few times slowly. The deer walked away into the backyard out of sight. I sang out a few more times, “it’s OK.“ A few seconds later the deer returned. I kept repeating my refrain as gently as I could and the doe returned to her business of foraging for alfalfa and twigs. I heard another rustle and lo and behold another joined her, slowly, and then another, and then yet another from the wooded brush beyond the barn.

I started singing a song that my dad taught us to sing on his boat many many years ago. “Take me along, if you love me, take me along… My heart will sing something jubilant sweet and clear and strong if you will take me along with you.” The animals looked up, quizzical, I guess, and then started meandering toward the brush on the far side. I kept singing, hoping to correct my voice, naturally, and to soften it, fill it out with something heartfelt and less tentative and off-key. I kept singing. The night is cold and open. Repeating. And for many moments the body of a deer stayed in my sight, in the near-dark, our eyes locked across yards as it wondered what to do with this strange sound, hoping to become familiar.