meadows empty of him, animal eyes, impersonal as glass

Aubades

to be a part of the outward life, to be out there at the edge of things, to let the human taint wash away in emptiness and silence as the fox sloughs his smell in the cold unworldliness of water.

—J.A. Baker

1.

There is the time before the knowing.

When I see the fox, and stop

my breath.

It is so light on the path –

there will be no pawprints in the hard

earth. Rain drifts

grainily in

the air, but I have felt nothing

on my skin for hours. It is the time, after

all, before the knowing,

which is not time, but the pausing of it.

It trots towards me, noses

the wet underbrush,

keeping to the edges

of the path, delicate as the breath not

taken, the unmoving

air, that must

have moved – since it starts,

and scents in me what I’ve not sensed,

the deepest predatory

wish; that I want only to pin it down, bury

my face in its winter fur.

Struck now:

my knowing of it will be the worst

of all deaths. It skips

sideways

from the path. I find

all foxes are gifts; afire, already skittering

away at your presence.

2.

Exactness of the inexact

light on Moelwyn Fach;

dusty red-gold of an old

fox.

3.

Every tale is a tale

of parting; the poet’s

wife saw through

the kitchen window

a fox fleeing the hunt,

and opened a door

to it. It cooled its paws

in the slate-floored dairy

then left as it had come,

returned to its earth,

tail stiff, a brush

with death.

4.

It pleased you most

to use the word unruly,

as you lifted my hair

again from you face,

and rose to make

the coffee.

5.

After the Welsh of Williams Parry

Then with no

haste, no

fright, it slipped

its russet hide

over the ridge.

It happened:

the disturbance

of a shooting

star.

Shevaun Cooley