This neighborhood fox is working his route
down the broad convergence between night
and morning light down the wellspring
valley through the little swamp
and up across the neighbors’ driveway
under pillowed hemlocks
drafting arcs among the drifts and
marking poplar stumps and bedrock
stopping coiling
four paws up through air the guided
muzzle striking through the snow
the vole plucked from its tunnel
swallowed whole and moving beyond
the efficient ruckus resuming
the steady business of the trot
in lithe meanders you can feel
the forward ears the twitching
of the nose and looping
under tractors under spruces
curving toward the cattails
over the line where a fox can go but only our
eyes may follow
And so I sit
back to a beech among the stones
in view of the route
from the daily bedding caves
to the table rock where four times he
has held his icing watch
just since the last snow
I have done all that I know to do
laying tracks among his tracks and
now the only one thing left
is waiting