To what end?

Apologies for my long absence. Again.

Last month, long before the snows fell, I was driving to work along a residential boulevard. It's four lanes with a grassy median dividing it, lined by pre-planned, upper-middle-class suburban communities with names like "Seminole Forest," names that pay lip service to the land's history without actually understanding it. It's a moderately busy road, but that day traffic was slowed down to a crawl. I didn't know why, until I saw the stag.

He was absolutely beautiful - six points at least - with a thick dun coat and a broad, well-muscled body. I'm not sure how big he actually was, however. It's hard to gauge size when the animal is on the ground.

A police officer had parked his squad car in the lane closest to the median, where the buck lay, and he stood next to the king's felled body with a bemused expression on his face. No doubt he was wondering what to do now. On the pavement behind the squad car was a thick red smear.

I felt an incalculable sadness at the sight. Here was one of the oldest, proudest stags I had seen in years - a far cry from the small, young bucks that usually populate the liminal space where "civilization" and "wilderness" merge. What was he doing here? What did he possibly gain from entering the world of humans?

Rationally, I know the answer. The truth is, humans are one of the best things to have happened to white-tailed deer. We cut down the old growth, clearing the way for deers' favorite habitat. We provide plentiful, nutritious food in our gardens and fields and kill off the apex predators who hunt them - the added danger of hunters and cars are small potatoes compared to the cornucopia of suburban living.

But emotionally I couldn't accept this. The stag is a potent symbol of the wild - when he dies, it should be the result of a meaningful hunt, not careless happenstance. The hunt celebrates the vibrancy of his life even as it ends it. Whereas the driver that hit him didn't even know he was there until it was too late.

I wanted to do something to acknowledge the tragedy of his death, but I didn't know what. The only hand symbol I could think of was the Christian cross, and that was obviously inappropriate. (I do not know why I didn't think of signing the pentagram, other than that I am not quite settled into a pagan identity yet.) So I did nothing except meet his glassy gaze and send him a prayer of well-wishes as I slowly drove by.

Every day, to and from work, my eyes sought out that crimson swath in the road. Even after the rains came and washed it away, and even now, with everything covered in a crystalline blanket, I still seek the place where the wild king died.