Lacking  a good photo of a deer

but wanting to highlight some poetry

we are back at Christmas.

Neither imagines
the spirit-deer made of thicket shadows,
the deer known only when imagined.

                This Day, Tomorrow, And The Next
                                          Pattiann Rogers

When for too long I don't go deep enough
into the woods to see them, they begin to
enter my dreams. Yes, there they are, in the
pinewoods of my inner life.

                                                                            
                                                                      The Faces of Deer
                                                                                      Mary Oliver

                                                                                   
                                                                    

The deer have crossed the treacherous lake,
And disapper now one by one into the spruce
Woods.  In the silence a bough breakes
Sharply with the weight of ice
and the sound re-echoes from the grey skies.

                                                                                     Thaw in January
                                                                                              R. A. D. Ford