“Traveling through the Dark,” by William E. Stafford, Annotated

William Stafford has the kind of name you’d expect from Tudor England or 17th century Massachusetts. You’d anticipate his poetry to have the stiffness of Anne Bradstreet or Thomas Wyatt, if you were to judge by a name. Upon reading his work, however, I was struck by its modernity. It gave me the same feeling I had when I first read Hammett, that of unexpected vitality.

Traveling through the dark I found a deer

dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.

This was first published in the titular volume Traveling through the Dark (1962). The Wilson River is a thirty-three mile long river in northwestern Oregon. This incident must have occurred in two periods: either 1947–1954 or 1957-publication, when Stafford was on staff at Lewis and Clark College in Portland. This deer is either a mule deer or a white-tailed deer. Both are native to this area of Oregon. It probably just stepped into the road and froze, although I have seen deer running across the road in front of a car. “Deer in the headlights” is a cliche for a reason, after all.

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:

that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

I remember a road like this. It’s in Illinois, not Oregon, but it’s similar to this one. Unstriped asphalt, drainage ditches that need to be redone, trees on either side, it curved up a steep hill. A deer could be just around the corner, and you wouldn’t stop in time. Eventually, it’ll be redone. But that costs money, and eventually is a long time.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car

and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;

she had stiffened already, almost cold.

I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

She would be heavy, I know. She would weigh more than me, even if she wasn’t pregnant. It took two people to lift my first deer, and we struggled to do so. It was cold then, and my father and I stood in the snow, looking down at my deer. She was cold, too.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason —

her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,

alive, still, never to be born.

Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;

under the hood purred the steady engine.

I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;

around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

The worst part is, I can see this scene. It would be cold, with breath fogging in the air. I can see the dim headlights on the doe. He wouldn’t have dragged her by her thin legs (I wouldn’t have). He (I) would grab behind her front legs and pull that way. He could feel the living fawn in the dead doe, but what could he do? He couldn’t call animal control or the state troopers. Could he have cut the fawn out? The unknown, unformed, living fawn? Would there be a life without its mother?

I thought hard for us all — my only swerving — ,

then pushed her over the edge into the river.

Truly, that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that I know this scene. My fawn wasn’t a fawn at all, but a bird caught in sealcoat. I couldn’t even tell what color it was, it was so covered. It was flapping, and I could feel where its beak would strike me if I touched it. I couldn’t help it by getting it free, but I could have helped it in the other way. I had steel-toed boots on. I should have helped it the other way. I recognize this sick feeling, is the thing. It’s This shouldn’t have happened, but what can I do? It’s How do I help-I didn’t know. It’s: God, what do I do?