The Painless Death of a Deer

Nov 30 3017

The painless death of a deer,

all skin and bones

on a bed of snow

in a cold impassive wood.

Wolves patiently circling

content to wait.

A faded blade of grass,

sapped of nutrients, and chlorophyll

beneath the shroud of snow.

Its dormant root

in the resting soil

where small mammals have burrowed,

waiting for that first warm day

to feed a fresh green shoot

and send it seeking light.

The frugality of winter;

too famished for waste

too long to wait for spring.

A matter of faith, the return of the sun;

even though

we feel so certain.

When all I know is hunger

for heavy food

and sweet indulgence.

In the world of abundance

modernity affords,

I contend with appetite, greed, and gluttony;

as if consumption could somehow make up

for the wearing absence of sun.

The season of subtraction;

each day

the incremental loss of light,

each night

a small simulation of death.

When the dogs are ravenous.

When squirrels stir

from semi-hibernation,

chirping and chattering

and raiding their secret caches.

When birds somehow survive,

clutching their feathers tight

and turning their backs to the wind.

At most, a day from starvation,

when hearts will race

and eyes will glaze

and hunger mercifully give.

The frozen bodies

of small animals

we never see, or think about

must be hiding in plain sight,

in the crooks and crannies of cities

in deep impenetrable woods.

Partially gnawed,

they will be reclaimed by earth

in the headlong thaw of spring,

returning to the soil

as grass quickly greens.

While the lucky among us emerge

sleek, and fat, and somnolent.

Like overstuffed cats

who have never chased a mouse,

lolling in front of the fire

eyes drifting shut.

I normally don't have much of a sweet tooth. But in winter, I find myself craving sweet starchy food, guilty carbohydrates. (Bananas, mostly. A perfect food, in a way: satisfying, nutritionally virtuous, and with a (surprisingly) low glycemic index; not to mention that it comes complete with its own handle and storage system!)

I find it ironic, our conceit of abundance in this frugal season. And it is a conceit, because so little separates us from desperate need. I say this because our economy is unsustainable: the current mass-consumption growth-dependent version of market capitalism is like a vampire, feeding on the prosperity of our descendants by greedily consuming the world's resources now, for ourselves. And because our economy is so complex and interdependent, the abundance of the supermarket is illusory: a couple days of interrupted power or obstructed roads, and those shelves full of colourful fruits and imported vegetables will empty, leaving us with whatever few tins of sardines we find in the back of a cupboard, a wilted lettuce in the back of the quickly warming fridge.

The difference between appetite and hunger can be explored metaphorically, as well: not just in terms of food, but in the broader sense of want vs need, desire vs necessity.

Animal imagery runs through the poem. Its spine is the contrast between the domestic and the wild.

Winter is hard, out in nature. But merciful, too. There is the painless death by cold: the paradoxical sensation of warmth experienced in hypothermia. And there is the absence of actual hunger, once a certain threshold of starvation is crossed.