Fox poem
(Published in the collection Our Mother, the Mountain)
Two days after moving into my place on the mountain,
it came across the yard like a living flame.
So weightless on its paws it could have been floating,
its tail the definition of orange all bushy and black edged,
the being thing sacred seeming,
my first neighbor to welcome me home.
Then a month after that,
it was sitting in my driveway
this small beast of fall colors and watching eyes,
its den somewhere close,
licking its paws like a pet.
And in the last year,
I smile when I see it.
Sometimes it is just a flash in the corner of my vision,
sometimes we stare at each other,
me chopping wood or working on my fence.
It is my friend this fox,
it has become something I long to see.
But tonight on the way home,
on the last curve before the top,
there in the other lane it lay unmoving,
it’s mouth half open, its eyes squinted shut.
My friend in the road, hit and left.
Another lovely thing torn away by us,
us who stain the sky with false light and noise.
Us who kill and cut and ruin.
And I am a part of it all and my neighbor is dead in the road.
I wish I could blame a tourist or a drunk driving carelessly,
but it could have been me,
it was me,
it was us
it was all of us
what have we done
what have we done, my friend?
