Welcome Wanderers

On my way to bed at night,

I pause to click the back porch light.

Seeming captives of its beam,

white-tailed deer, statues in the gleam,

come to browse on dead fall macs,

but now flash frozen in their tracks.



Eyes reflect a reddish glow,

and blink back flakes of early snow.

Plumes of frost as nostrils flare,

to sniff for danger in the air.

Tawny coats of cabernet,

how I yearn for them to stay.



Suspended motion, theirs and mine.

I hold my breath and savor wine

as strong as any vintage grape.

A white tail flashes - then escape.

Through leaps and bounds no sound they make,

an emptiness their only wake.



Gone like phantoms o’er the fence

leaving loneliness intense.

Several nights without their presence,

make me doubt their very essence.

Until my light entraps the deer,

welcome wanderers passing near.

-Timothy Tocher

Suffern, NY