Chad Norman - A Fawn’s Stare

Chad Norman lives beside the high-tides of the Bay of Fundy, Truro, Nova Scotia. He has given talks and readings in Denmark, Sweden, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, America, and across Canada.His poems appear in publications around the world and have been translated into Danish, Albanian, Romanian, Turkish, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Polish. His collections are Selected & New Poems (Mosaic Press), and Squall: Poems In The Voice Of Mary Shelley, is out from Guernica Editions.

A Fawn’s Stare

Shortly after feeding the family and speaking with adults I know the blessing of healthy ears led my wonder to the forest growing in an industrial park when the intermittent brave caws confirmed the annual hope I carry to say out loud to myself, “Yes, babies!”

Two new members now make seven as parents watch what I do happily seated on a stack of pallets behind some business the virus reduces, a time only I, the human, feels threatened as well as what a few isolated moments fill all five senses with when I lower my head having heard some other sound to witness a fawn’s stare, another new one, peeking up out of grass wet with gifts of rain, ears like mine gathering, tiny spotted body soon to turn and bolt back to mother.

How time can slow down, even stop us, all these lives finding life somehow, those with years running out, those able to bear births with a trust almost, but still hide to protect and teach. As I stand to begin the trek to my home new little spots, new open beaks become all that is necessary to believe tomorrow is there, perhaps, anxious to arrive.

After Leaving A Lousy Job

Another new morning comes with another new education: I can finally agree the winter is over as spring surrounds us,

the proof once more being how a starling feeds one of her young among the impatient many,

quite like the opened dandelions and the warm mothering sun.

Almost Sixty-One Today

I hear the happiness in so many caws.

I see the family, black-feathered, in so many trees.

Morning is best, they want you most then.