We have had several unusual encounters with what I might be forced to describe as "God's Way." We are witnessing bears snapping up and carrying off and...we have to assume... EATING" newborn fawns, supposedly a great delicacy with the bears. I have not seen this myself, but those who have are greatly affected by the sights...and the sounds...of it all.
Deer seem to have come to know that the grounds of the Village itself offer a relatively safe place to be...to come to nibble away at some nice vegetation and as a birthing place. We have witnessed a number of does giving birth close by, even inside the outer perimeter of village structures...this year and in previous years. As soon as the fawns are up and mobile enough to get about quickly on their own, the doe and her offspring will move on.
Bears, which are always around Out There seem to have discovered Holden as a birthing place and a potential meal ticket to what I am told they consider to be their greatest delicacy, a baby fawn. Such a meal beats out berries and leaves by a long shot.
For those of us who sit atop the "Chain of Being," these encounters are not easy to consider, and certainly not easy to witness. The fawns are so "cute." The bear cubs needing food are so "cute." And some of us are having to witness "cute" gone to wildness. Wildness is at our very doorsteps. It is so easy to forget that because we are so civilized here.
A visit to a slaughterhouse or a poultry processing plant or a pig farm might offer us the perspective we need.
Wilderness A la Carte
Wilderness mothers
Do not have the option
Of sustaining the life of an offspring
With a cellophane-wrapped
Boneless and skinless
Eyeless and hoof less
Hunk of bloodless meat
In a Styrofoam tray.
Wilderness mothers
Are subject to do-it-or-die necessity.
They must sustain their young
By first stealing a new-born offspring
From another mother.
The whole of it.
Bones, skin, eyes, hooves.
And it screaming all the while.
The cute bear cubs
Watch from on high in a tree,
While their mother returns with dinner,
A cute newborn fawn
Hanging from her teeth.
The bears,
Sated and sustained
And without a trace of triumph,
Sleep well through the night.
The doe,
With no notion of grief,
Roams the night woods
With swollen milk sacs.
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1 comment:
Wanda, I cried reading this entry. I know those cute bears need dinner and I hate to think of those equally adorable fawns being dinner. We had a cat that once carried a shrieking baby rabbit up the driveway, that upset me to no end...
But as a child, watching my Sunday chicken dinner get decapitated and eviscerated never bothered me. Funny about that...
I have been enjoying your posts and am looking forward to seeing you soon.
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