–  for Charla

Two brown eyes, framed by sprays
of pine needles, stared, blinked.  
The fawn lowered her head.

This is a once-in-a-life, she thought,
as she lifted the camera to her eye.
The camera strap rustled, and the deer

bolted.  Her mama quickly herded her
away. In the viewfinder the focusing
dots nervously flickered trying

to find those eyes. Gone. Lost.
Yet another missed chance.
She lowered the camera and walked

down the gentle slope, listening
to the whispers of meadow grass hay
as it brushed past her boots.

In the dry creek bed an ancient
pick-up lay on its back, like a beetle
too weak to right itself, a collage

of rust, paint, and grease, its tires
gone to sun rot. In the finder
she saw a ragged metal carcass

dissolving in slow motion
into a blend of rocks, bark scraps,
bronze leaves, sawtoothed

flakes of steel, a congregation
of twigs and branches. A single
frame could not tell that story.

How many bales had that truck
carried to the feeding troughs?
Half a century ago. She stepped 

stone by stone to the other bank
and began the steep climb
up the hill before her, leaving

the truck and its fifty years.
This day fifty years ago: her tenth
birthday. She could still hear

the squeaking of Keds across
linoleum and hardwood, seeking
and hiding. And her first bottle-

spinning kiss, even sweeter now. 
Memories like these, she thought,
carry me through the tattered days,

and the days that flow like honey
from a spoon. On the hilltop
crouched a knotty cluster of trees

tangled with vines and brush. 
A short walk around the dense
copse with its snag-crazy briars

would bring her to the pasture
and the cows dozing and grazing
in full-fledged sunlight. But easy

pathways had rarely led her
to discoveries she needed. 
This was her journey. No one

could tell her the way. Pressing
the camera lens against her red plaid
flannel shirt, she walked straight

into the shadowed heart of the thicket.