Red Deer
Grandfather sits
by lake’s edge
reeds like sentinels
fire spitting sparks into the night
dancing our shadows
long on the earth
he hands me a bowl of broth
from bones and elderberries
to build my blood
wake my memory
He tells me how
our red deer kin
fashioned us from mud and water
taught us food
and fire
and wonder
I ask him why
we break our antlers
our spears and flint
and give them
to the lake.
You already know,
he says,
tracing a circle
in the soil.
Beth Winegarner an award-winning journalist, author, essayist and pop culture critic who’s contributed to the New York Times, the New Yorker, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Wired, Mother Jones, and many others. She is the author of several books, most recently "San Francisco’s Forgotten Cemeteries: A Buried History."
