by Shirley Delsignore

Created on: April 16, 2008

The full moon made it so that one could read without the aid of artificial light. The old ghost town out in the southwestern desert of Utah was a great place to camp for the night. If you have never experienced total silence, this is the place to go. And peering into the night sky you will be able to see stars not visible from anywhere else on the western side of the Rockies. Even with the full moon, the night skies are filled to capacity with shimmering diamonds of color.

The full moon has just risen in the eastern sky and there standing on the tailings of the old mine is a herd of mule deer. Their slender legs casting shadows thirty feet long and their tall ears silhouetted in the night sky. There must have been a hundred of them. I tried not to spook them but I am sure my presence is known. The mule deer have an uncanny sense of smell and hearing. They knew I was there long before I discovered them. Off in the distance a coyote yelps at the rising moon, and in unison the deer turned their heads in the direction from which the yipping occurred. I watched as the largest of the herd, with a rack that cast a shadow like that of a tree, the apparent leader, raises his head high into the night sky and sniffs the warm desert air. All I could smell is sage and mesquite, very strong odor due to the recent downpour of rain.

The deer sensing that the lone coyote is to far off in the distance to be a threat, and that I posed no threat what-so-ever, proceed in their nightly journey to the watering hole, their delicate hoofs clacking on the rocks as the wandered down the tailings to the water below.

The moon has now risen high enough in the sky at to see the reflection of the deer in the clear clean blue spring water below. As they drink they occasionally raise their heads and look off in the distance at some sound that is undetectable to my human ear. I watched as the deer lapping at the water causes it to ripple from bank to bank. Slowly, a few deer at a time meandered off to their grazing grounds, their thirst is quenched, it is now time to fill their bellies. This parade of deer continues for sometime, and then the last one is gone.

I climb to the top of the tailings and scan the ground before me, the deer are now nothing but shadowy figures on the desert floor.

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