Stanza 1 Summary

Lines 1-2

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.

• Lines 1 and 2 do a lot of work in terms of setting. With only 17 words, Stafford lets us know the time of day, that we are in a rural setting, and that the speaker has discovered a dead deer on the roadside. (Check out "Setting" for more on all that good stuff.)
• The language is plain and direct. There is a conversational tone. We feel like the speaker is telling us a story and is using these first two lines to set the scene.
• But don't let the plain language fool you. Stafford uses some subtle poetic tools in these first two lines to create that effect. 
• For example, the line break between line 1 and 2 sets us up for a fall. When we read line 1, things don't seem too bad. The speaker, "[finds] a deer." Seems pretty nice so far, right? Have you ever seen Bambi?
• In line 2, we find out that the deer the speaker found was dead—not nice. Our warm, happy, nature moment ends abruptly.
• (Now that we think of it—spoiler alert—Bambi's mom did die in that movie…) 
• The enjambment between line 1 and 2 makes the image we get of the deer switch very quickly from a living deer to a dead one. If there was a period at the end of line 1, we'd be allowed to linger a little longer on that image of a living deer. Instead, without the pause between the end of line 1 ("deer") and the beginning of line 2 ("dead") the deer goes from living to dead in an instant. 
• In just these first two lines, Stafford demonstrates the fragility of life in a very immediate way—he makes us see and feel it.
• Stafford doesn't say the deer is on the side of the road. He says the deer is, "dead on the edge of the Wilson River road." By choosing the word "edge" rather than "side" we get the sense of something teetering, something that has run out of space and is at the edge. We also get the emotional sense of being on edge or on the edge. 
• By naming the road it makes the poem more immediate—it is about one specific deer in one specific place. It helps to give the poem the feeling of a moment in time captured by the poet. It also helps to build a picture of the rural setting. Broadway and 73rd this ain't.

Lines 3-4

It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

• The speaker tells us what has to be done, and why. It's best to roll the dead deer off the road and into the canyon because the road is narrow and another driver, swerving to avoid hitting the deer's body, might crash and be killed.
• These two lines tell us a lot about the speaker. This isn't his first time on a dark country road. It probably isn't even his first time on this dark country road. He knows what to do. Our speaker is no city slicker, that's for sure.
• These two lines also introduce the poem's first metaphor. You've probably heard the old sayings about the road of life, that life is a journey, and also that "Life is a Highway" song from the Cars soundtrack. Well, in a way, that's what's going on here.
• The speaker and the deer are on the same road (the road of life). The dead deer has to be moved off the road to make room for others (the living) to pass.
• Leaving the dead along the edge of the road (holding onto the dead, keeping the dead too close) is dangerous. It can cause the living to alter their course, or even to go off the road altogether, to "make more dead"—again, not good.
• Finally, as we peace out of this first stanza, did you notice any regular rhyme or rhythm?
• Yeah, us neither. Wondering why? We talk more about that over in "Form and Meter."