Lament for a Fawn

Fawn Reclining; model 1840, cast by 1874; Antoine-Louis Barye

CEFR Level C1-C2

Fawn, you are mourned. 

My tears do nothing to ease

Your fear

Your pain.

Nothing

Rewinds time

Pushing your jump higher

Rewinding more

To when the decision was made

To put a fence of cattle wire

Around a backyard

And never take it down.

Fawn, you are mourned. 

Nothing

Makes flesh whole

Smooths jagged bone

Inserts blood into tubes

Where it belongs.

Not here,

On grass, shoe,

Hands, and towel. 

Fawn, you are mourned.

Our help does nothing to ease

Your fear

Your pain.

Nothing

Soothes your mother’s worried eyes

Assures her you’ll soon

Be by her side

Again trotting across

The road

That dangerous place

To lie under shade in welcoming yards.

Nothing

Rings true

As we croon

“You’re okay”

“It’ll be okay”

“Shh, shhh”

“It’ll be alright”

You and we and she know the truth.

Fawn, you are mourned.

My efficiency does nothing to ease

Your fear

Your pain.

Nothing

Extends a life

That should have lived

Accounts for choices

None of us made

Changes the horror

Of your pain and

Our helplessness.

Nothing

Brings the vet closer

Moves the break lower

Turns compound into simple

Creates an abundance of 

Trained rescuers.

Well, maybe something

Could make that last one true.

Fawn, you are mourned.

I could theologize.

Say the tears 

Form a heart that 

Feels when eyes

See

Causing the body
To act. 

But that would be about me.

This is about you.

Your life

Your mother’s grief

Your existence in a place

You didn’t ask to be

But have no other

To graze

Because we made it so.

Some may ask

Why I cry

For “just an animal.” 

I cry because

Your life mattered.

Some may ask

Why I cry

For a deer when 

So many humans suffer.

Who says I don’t cry

For the humans?

But today

This fawn

In human arms

Deserves our grief.

There is enough grief to go around.

It isn’t a competition. 

All can matter. 

Your life mattered, fawn.

Your missing life matters.

Fawn, you are mourned.

Fawn, tears drop today

In honor of all your long

Pain and terror 

Until the end

As peaceful

As we know how.

Which for you 

Was no peace at all.

Fawn, tears fall tomorrow

In memory

Of what was

What could have been

What should have been

Of life that mattered

Of fear and pain

You never should have felt.

My help did nothing to ease

Your fear

Your pain.

All I did was shorten

Their hours

Though perhaps

Increasing their effect.

Fawn, your life mattered 

And for that

You are mourned.

Fawn, you are mourned.

Mourned

You are

Fawn.