Part of my commute to and from work involves a couple of miles of winding two-lane road next to a stream. There is plenty of wildlife around this road, which requires vigilance to avoid running into or over any other creatures with whom you might be sharing the land.

This evening an opossum wandered into the road ahead of me. The first thing I saw was the reflection of its eyes, two little beady eyes nonchalantly looking around and sniffing at something on the road directly in front of me. I stopped a short distance from it (no other traffic) and waited for its attention to be directed my way. Possums don't seem to notice or care about bright headlights attached to a ton of metal six feet away making whirring noises. It went right back to sniffing something on the road. I waited some more. Finally it seemed to get frightened at something and dashed away across the road.

Another common inhabitant you see around the road is the deer. They're somewhat more wary than the possums, but all too often you see a deer carcass by the side of the road, a victim of either a too-bold crossing or a too-careless driver. Yesterday morning a deer bounded across the road a couple of hundred feet in front of me and gracefully vaulted a six foot barbed wire fence on the other side. Just like that, in one fluid motion.

I was inspired to create some haiku.

Possum lives by night
Crossing the road is a risk
The threat comes too fast

Munching on the grass
Deer searching for a good meal
So gracefully leap

I hope it's a long time before that road is brutally transformed into a mundane suburban four-lane boulevard with a grassy irrigated median, left turn lanes, wide shoulders, and stop lights.