The Breathing Deer

Morning doesn’t yet know

it is morning.

Mist rises

like an unfinished thought.

Beneath the old firs,

the mule deer moves

with the caution of one

who listens to time

dripping through the moss.

His hooves meet

the wet earth

with a grace that contradicts

the weight of being alive.

The moss breathes on bark

like an ancient skin.

Branches bend slightly,

attuned to the soft passage

of a body that belongs.

He stops.

The air between us is a bridge

built of what’s not said.

Then—something calls.

Maybe the echo of a hidden spring,

maybe just the memory of being wild.

In one motion,

he breaks into a run—

downward,

toward the deep valley

where the forest folds into itself

and everything returns

to what does not need a name.