{"id":9123,"date":"2025-12-16T18:14:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T01:14:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=9123"},"modified":"2025-12-16T18:14:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T01:14:36","slug":"road-signs-in-the-country","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=9123","title":{"rendered":"Road Signs In The Country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Jim Tilley<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Many carry the image of a deer lifting off<br>from hind legs, forelegs bent at the knee,<br>head held upright, antlers worn like a crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Drivers forewarned they may encounter<br>these bounding creatures trying to get from<br>one side of the road to the other, lives likely<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">to be cut short in traffic, especially at night,<br>not to mention the serious damage to the striking<br>vehicle, both parties better off for never having<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">met. A designated crossing might be in order,<br>but that would entail much rounding up<br>and detailed instructions on when to wait, when<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">to proceed, learning to recognize red and green.<br>At spots where the road passes through denser<br>forest, signs feature both the deer and a moose,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">his head not held high, shoulders sagging,<br>the beast dragging himself onto the pavement<br>from the woods, looking as if he\u2019s just waiting<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">to be struck down, things not going well in his life<br>or at least in his day, as if he\u2019s just heard that<br>he and his whole family will soon be deported<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">to god-knows-where for lack of proper documents<br>to cross the highway without a fuss, perhaps<br>a timely death seeming a more desirable outcome<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">in a land like this. What does the moose know<br>that the deer doesn\u2019t, and what did the sign-maker<br>understand that he\u2019s trying to communicate?<\/p>\n\n\n\n&nbsp;\n\n\n\n<hr\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>JIM TILLEY<\/strong>\u00a0has published four full-length collections of poetry and a novel with Red Hen Press. His short memoir,\u00a0<em>The Elegant Solution<\/em>, was published as a Ploughshares Solo. Five of his poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His most recent poetry collection,\u00a0<em>Ripples in the Fabric of the Universe: New &amp; Selected Poems<\/em>, was published in June 2024. His forthcoming collection,\u00a0<em>When Godot Arrived<\/em>, will be published in the fall of 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jim Tilley Many carry the image of a deer lifting offfrom hind legs, forelegs bent at the knee,head held upright, antlers worn like a crown. Drivers forewarned they may encounterthese bounding creatures trying to get fromone side of the road &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/?page_id=9123\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9117,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9123","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P15duy-2n9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9123"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9131,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9123\/revisions\/9131"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jerseydevilpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}