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Fox Moves Through Ruins
The fox moves through the ruins of a barn
ribs sharp against his red pelt,
something wet in his mouth.
The wind a gaping maw,
full of unspoken names.
The horse fence fallen, slumped into earth
where hooves once hammered their arguments.
The trees stand aside, as if watching.
Nothing says what it means—
not the night, not the gnaw of frost on dead grass,
not the vole, limp in the fox’s teeth.
And yet something moves toward knowing,
the fox in his silence,
the owls on the post, the bodies
stacked in the hayloft of the past.
I used to think the world spoke in riddles,
waiting for us to solve it.
Now I think it is only hunger, only the slow
unfurling of instinct, the dark making space
for what must come next.
Tonight, the fox disappears,
slips past the last of the fences.
I do not know if he eats the vole,
if he brings it to his kits,
if he lets it fall from his mouth
and keeps walking into the dark. |
