EARLY FROST

From a jet's cabin
in strong sunlight
at thirty thousand feet,
I cannot see where mule deer
nubs of antlers-in the velvet
doeskin, buckskin, fawnskin
stroll across fallen barbed wire fences,
smelling the cow's saltlick
in the greensward.

But they are there:
rumps, undersides and neck patches white,
tails white beneath, blacktipped,
browsing undisturbed.

I cannot hear their muted footfalls
in the grass,
but they are there,
like dim, ancient pictographs
scratched on citrine canyon walls
in rude attempt
to hold motion still.

The Fasten Your Seatbelt sign
is off. I am free.
Ascending in some transfigured
fourth-dimension,
leaving behind a white contrail
like a slip-knot lariat,
I think of those deer
leaving hoof prints
in an early frost,
foraging unfenced orchards,
fat with ruddy windfall apples.