Traveling through the dark

1) while driving down a narrow road he hits a pregnant deer and he is faced with the decision of whether or not to push it over the canyon with the rest of the road kill or not. He sat in his car for a while and weighed to pros and cons but then decided to do the responsible thing and pull her off the road so there aren’t any more accidents. And although its sad that the fawn never got to live, its better then the alternative of trying to survive on its own without its mother. The man’s “only swerving” is referring to his hesitation when he realizes the deer is pregnant, he had first planned on just throwing her over into the canyon. When he says “to swerve might make more dead” he is meaning that if he deviates or swerves from his plan then other people will most likely crash and die.

2) The actual title, Traveling through the dark, brings to your mind the sense of sight, it also gives you a time of day from which you can imagine the poem taking place. The dark could also be referring to his judgment which is clouded and unsure when he realizes the deer is pregnant.

3) There is a possible rhyme between line 14 with red and 16 with listen. And on lines 11 at the beginning of line with alive and on line 12 with beside. And in the forth stanza engine and listen both end in the same sound.