By:  Bob Morgan.

There is movement.  Rich bronze against a maze of greens

The muscled neck swings gracefully upward and intelligent eyes search the difference.

Nose raised to the air, a search for unfamiliar scents.

A slight snort, sharp hooves paw the earth and the whitetail moves back into the maze of green,

completely obscured.  I, too, am obscured.

From my stand high in a tall oak, I have watched the buck reveal himself, then once  again hide.

His wariness, his wiliness impress me.  I did not move, I could not have been seen or smelled;

yet he had known I was there.

The breeze pushes through the leaves , creating action all around.  

The birds and small animals continue their work and play.

Today, I come not as a hunter.  I have come to watch, to try once more to observe the whitetail in his world, as he lives every day.

To be close enough to watch his ribs move in and out as he calmly breathes.  

To watch him chew his food. To watch him kick up his hooves and run.

To be close enough to watch a spotted fawn, who has never seen the likes of me before,

as he looks at me, head turned comically, as he advances and retreats,

as his wide-eyed mother watches nervously from undercover.

My hours spent in the woods fill me with wonder, with enchantment, with fantasy

mixed with illusion cut by reality.  All these things enter through my senses,

come into my heart, become my breath.

The hunter in me allows me to fly my arrow, fast and true into the heart of my buck;

the dreamer in me allows me to always remember my buck as he was before the arrow’s flight.

Note:  Originally published in Bowhunter Magazine (Annual) 1983.