sketchbook stories: the fawn

"…if beauty were time, you’d be eternity"

Fawn season. I see her in the crabapple orchard out back. I name her: Betsy. I’ve already named her parents: Kevin and Alice. They appear in the dappled shadows of first light, foraging for crabapples yet unformed. The apple trees bloom with new life, the enchanted grove scented in honeyed sweetness.

In a week, another fawn: Walter. Uncertain. Gangly legs in dewy grass. I slip out the barn door, silent as a sunbeam. I count the spots on each fawn, nature’s protective armor. A chickadee chirps.

In a year, Betsy births her own fawn. The cycle as timeless as infinity.

illustration by my grandfather, Edward Shenton from “The Color of the Country,” by my grandmother, Barbara Webster. [Scribner’s; 1947].

“When the fawn caught sight of us, it bounded to its feet, and came to us in a series of incredibly light and fairy-like leaps.”

---