SHE FOX

Photo by S. Auberle

She is lean this early spring,

but bold,  black mottled

in her red fur

stepping gingerly

on one leg,

the other three

slender and quick.

We are neighbors,

share the same grassy field,

the benevolent cedar

that shelters her.

Perhaps something in her

remembers an ancestor,

pregnant one deep winter,

starving, and the kindness

shown here by a woman

maybe like me,

who felt compassion,

fed her that long dark time

until the kits were born

knowing,

in that spirit place we

have in common,

that humans are good

now and then, leaving

an egg, a crust of bread

a bone sticking up

through the snow...

an old poem brought back into the light by the sighting of a fox in my yard...this first published in "Crow Ink"