the thrill never wavers
the deer have such quiet about them. a crowd of them gathers, grey
and soft against the blue white of snow at twilight. my son hangs
at the window, calls deer! deer! i have trained him well.
just like myself last autumn, when i lifted the shade to a silvery
dawn and shouted bear! bear! and my two loves came running
in as we watched the bear's sleepy black form amble slowly across
a golden field beneath smoky skies, saw her pause to hide beneath trees,
measuring the human threat before continuing toward the safety
of the shape of foothills. i think of my mother on long cross-country
road trips shouting antelope! antelope! or elk! elk! and gesticulating madly,
both of her hands off the wheel, while my teenage self tried hard to remain
unimpressed, escaping into the sounds of my walkman, my bare feet
crossed on the dashboard. no matter how many years she gathers around
herself, my mother's excitement never wavers, each sighting just like the first.
just like when she walked with my son at age four, holding his small hand
and pointing her fingers into sky, her own eyes brilliant with the thrill
of seeing a red-winged blackbird, that flicker of red flame lined with yellow
against a shimmer of black, the trill of song as it disappears into the reeds.
and soft against the blue white of snow at twilight. my son hangs
at the window, calls deer! deer! i have trained him well.
just like myself last autumn, when i lifted the shade to a silvery
dawn and shouted bear! bear! and my two loves came running
in as we watched the bear's sleepy black form amble slowly across
a golden field beneath smoky skies, saw her pause to hide beneath trees,
measuring the human threat before continuing toward the safety
of the shape of foothills. i think of my mother on long cross-country
road trips shouting antelope! antelope! or elk! elk! and gesticulating madly,
both of her hands off the wheel, while my teenage self tried hard to remain
unimpressed, escaping into the sounds of my walkman, my bare feet
crossed on the dashboard. no matter how many years she gathers around
herself, my mother's excitement never wavers, each sighting just like the first.
just like when she walked with my son at age four, holding his small hand
and pointing her fingers into sky, her own eyes brilliant with the thrill
of seeing a red-winged blackbird, that flicker of red flame lined with yellow
against a shimmer of black, the trill of song as it disappears into the reeds.
Jill Kitchen's work appears in FERAL: A Journal of Poetry and Art, Naugatuck River Review, Poems in the Afterglow, and Tinderbox Poetry Journal. She has a B.A. in Romance languages from Colorado College and has studied creative writing at UCLA, Columbia University, The Poetry Project in New York City, and with Hollowdeck Press in Boulder. She lives in Boulder, Colorado, where she can be found rollerskating on the creek path while searching for great horned owls. Twitter: @jillkitchen
Art: John James Audubon. Public Domain.