Two wild bucks, as dun as summer
grasses gone, have come pretending
wings, to pick our birdseed.
White about the eyes, and ears
set to catch your click
offsafety, they tense
and fidget noses, almost
forget hunger
in your grip
on gun. No sound.

Of course the garden's gone:
strawberries nibbled to the root
by rabbit tooth, eggplant
gluttoned, chili peppers
stripped of leaves, the hot pods
spit out on the ground.
Nothing left but these seeds
we scatter for songbirds.

Your rifle steadies,
wavers, aims. The rabbits
learn to fly.

I can lie here like a log when someone's coming.
I've climbed under bark and deadfall, dry leaves.
This is the land of trees and squirrels, of logs hating
trucks and chainsaws. Two spring trickles, a stream
over moss and small rocks, come together to gather
a pond and go on. I can be a log beside a pond
speechless invisible giving off scant breath
almost no scent carried off on the breeze.
Someone already is past or will be passing
busy somewhere else. A log sleeps in its rings
unique thumbprint, sloughing off its bark
becoming unsplittable wood.