The Clearing
I treat happiness like the half-tamed deer I have coaxed into a clearing and want only to be near- If I look right at it, it will spook and disappear. Instead I have to look studiously away, offering my mind permission to marvel only out of the furthest corner of my eye.
If I reach out to it with a handful of something sweet, it will smell a trap and start away, flash of a white tail into the underbrush. No sudden movements. I only want to look at you. Stay, just long enough to let me look at you in the fading light.
- Margaret Ray











