Saturday, March 6, 2010

Vulpes vulpes

I've seen a fox this morning. He was harried by the crows who cat-called down at him as he looked for something in the rough and snows outside. Then he turned and fled across the green towards the pond and I didn't see him again.

It was a weighted moment, like one might feel in a church. There was a sacred charge in the air of something momentous that I still feel even in the wake of his absence. He was beautiful and moved more as a cat than his canine brethren. A lithe red fox that stared me down as I ran to the door to watch him move, then dismissed me and proceeded to look for whatever he was being driven to find.

Fare you well, little fox. If we meet again, I will be less agape and more reverential.

I'd thought the arrival of the redwing blackbirds was cause for celebration, trailing spring behind them on their backs as they flew up from the south to arrive here in their happy mated pair and trill away in the reeds and cattails of the wetlands that surround this place. But now I know this is a momentous spring, and I shall probably never see the life of it again. I will cherish each ticking hour of sun and moonshine and what it reveals. I have never unknowningly longed for something so silently as I have for these first days of spring. Those who have long accompanied me on this walk of the planet earth are revealing themselves gradually, seasonally, once more.

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