-This poem reflects on a fox hunting along the edge of a harvested field, where its patience, sudden leap, and tracks left in thawing soil reveal the unseen life continuing after the crops are gone.
The fox steps out at break of day,
where corn stubble meets the hedge,
its russet back receives the sun,
its black legs dark against the frost.
It stops beside a wagon rut,
one forepaw lifted over mud,
its ears turned toward a hidden sound
that travels underneath the grass.
Then suddenly it leaves the ground,
a red arc over flattened weeds,
and lands nose-first among the stems,
its tail held level in the air.
By dusk, the crows return to feed,
the frost has vanished from the rows;
fresh tracks cross the softened earth
and end beneath the sumac hedge.