Summer 2003
	Scott Withiam
	Ovid As a Young Buck
	Our parks' forests are cool, lush, protected - maybe too much so.
	Ovid, a young buck, steps out of the woods to openly graze in the meadow.
	The parks' guided tourists grumble. Because the parks are protected, deer act too trusting. It's unnatural. They want this guy wild.
	Ovid's ears go up. They like it both ways, he thinks. He faces the tourists (us), by looking back,
	while the bulk of his body points in another direction. Trusting? His skin shivers like the stars strung taut in a night sky - ready to go off. "Right in broad daylight," says one of the visitors.
	Goes? Here's how he goes:
	the deer half facing us is so khaki - khaki books, khaki pants, khaki shirts, though two buttons undown at the top of his expose the white patch of hair at the throat, assuring that the animal is our guide, his thick neck strapped with high-powered binoculars.
	The half facing away reveals a tan back and white rump. Inside every animal, there's always a human side that's been on vacation.
	All we must do is grasp difference between assume to receive and assuming.