Bambi Poem by Dean Meredith

It is night and the jungle lives
Excited monkeys chatter
Birds call and answer
A full moon colours leaves trees grasses - green
A brownish mist rises, thick from the earth
A musty smell wafts through ferns palms
Spider webs stretch heavy with insects
Thirsty mosquitoes hang in the heat
The backdrop - a veil of black
A doe-eyed deer creeps cautiously into a clearing
A city of eyes, look on, afraid to blink
The deer meanders, alone, lost
Breathing slows
Heartbeats synchronize
Noise tails off
Cross-hairs focus
Silence
Then the quick flick of a switch
And a great bright light makes day from night
Shocked, dazed
The little fawn freezes in hot white fear
Three hard fingers squeeze triggers
Raw instinct sets in, the deer thinks to bolt
Its knees wobble, and trembling, it stumbles
Slowly falling like a floating feather
And crumples into the ground
The sound of gunfire echoes around and dies
A wailing cry rings out
Another and another
Until a frenzied cacophony rages from the boughs
And not a hunter is heard
As they silently drag the fresh lifeless form
And the blood runs free still warm as it flows
Over grass and leaves and sticks like paint
To moss and clay on the soft moist floor
Then quick as they came they are gone again
And it is dark once more