January 27: Fox sunrise

Fox barking at dawn

leaves another line of tracks

across the snowy lawn. 

September 9: Red alert

When we hear the crows making a racket in the yard, we never know what we're going to find back there. Sometimes it's an eagle up in a tree, sometimes a hawk or an owl, and sometimes a more terrestrial creature.

 

after crows harangued

the fox over the river

chorus of crickets

February 6: Tracking

moon over my shoulder

following fox tracks

to the meditation house

Posted with Blogsy

June 11: Missed fox

Hiker ahead of us says

our raised voices

scared away a fox.

Posted with Blogsy

April 28: Sighting

Shock when the quick fox
started from the roadside,
then just a simple joy.

May 3: Fox kits at Schoodic Point

I've lost my heart--

a litter of fox kits

has run away with it.

 

Posted with Blogsy

December 31: Last day of the year

In broad daylight, fox

crosses the snowy yard.

Spirit of old year or new?

New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Ōji
Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, Tokyo (Edo) 1797–1858 Tokyo (Edo)).

Posted with Blogsy

June 27: Late night in the neighborhood

Drive home late, passing
man walking a dog,
fox dashing into bushes.

November 22: Thanksgiving

Things I am thankful for (so far) today:

Being awakened by my affectionate cat
Blue sky
the New York Times crossword puzzle
Walk up Beech Hill with my mother, sister, and two nieces
Two mice mating, playing, or otherwise squabbling in the weeds, trailside
My niece's fascination with bayberries
The scent of crushed bayberries
My other niece's joy in banging two rocks together
Distant red of autumn-burnished blueberry fields
Good health
Free time for my husband to write
A little free time for me to write too
Not losing the Thanksgiving turkey, brining on my parents' porch this morning, to a fox
Crows on the lawn
Cat's amusing attempts to jump through the windows at birds and squirrels

Prayer flags and dry leaves
stir in the breeze,
share blessings.

October 19: Floating leaf

When I looked out the window first thing this morning, I noticed a red leaf paused in the air, floating against the white door of the shed. It took me a moment to realize that the leaf wasn't frozen in space or time, but caught in a spider web.

Red leaf stuck in a web.
My in-laws trapped a fox
in their backyard.

April 19: Sun-shower

This afternoon while running an errand I got caught out in a torrential downpour. I got soaked in about 60 seconds. It was rather invigorating. By the time I got back to the office, the rain had passed through. The sun shone, and vultures soared ecstatically in the blue sky, wheeling over Mount Battie on gusts of wind. And there I was with wet hair dripping all over my desk. But soon enough, another clump of clouds rolled in, and it began to rain again--though the sun was still shining, the western sky a wide scrap of blue. As we  were leaving work, a faint but full rainbow arced over the mountaintop, briefly bridging it with rapidly fading colors.

From the movie "Kurasawa's Dreams" I learned that this kind of sun-shower is the foxes' wedding day. If you happen upon the ceremony itself, as happens to a boy in the movie, you will never be able to return home. (That's just one haunting "dream" in this beautiful film.) I always think of it when experiencing this weather pattern, the scene of the fox bride and groom upright and dressed in ceremonial clothing, marching through the trees with their wedding procession, one of them turning to look right at the boy spying on them...

Interestingly, in checking it out just now as a bit of Japanese folklore, I discovered that the theme of a trickster animal getting married during a sun-shower is common all over the world. For many cultures it's foxes, but in Bulgaria, apparently bears get married, and hyenas in Kenya. In other places, devils or other evil spirits get married. What's up with that? That's the kind of thing I would have loved to have studied back when I was taking folklore classes in grad school.

In any case, foxes in this neighborhood should have done their "marrying" a couple of months ago, so I'm not worried about stumbling upon their wedding. What does worry me, however, is that some night I'm going to hear a vixen screaming in the woods and drop dead of a heart attack.

Sun shining through rain--
fading rainbow a bower
for foxes' wedding.

November 15: Fox

The inspiration for today's poem is my friend Brian Willson's Facebook status update this morning: "Up the foggy hill, about a dozen crows are hollering down at a fox that's exactly the color of fallen leaves." This evocative image got my creative wheels spinning in so many directions that I had to make use of it. Thank you, Brian.

What first sprang to mind when I read this was Winslow Homer's incredible painting "The Fox Hunt," which has haunted me ever since I first saw it at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts over a dozen years ago. Crows hound a fox bounding through deep snow, their black wings hovering above the struggling animal in a foreboding manner, sea brooding in the background. And as is typical with crows, more  are flying in to join the harangue. The beauty of this painting, aside from its aesthetic values of color, form, and movement, is its abbreviated narrative. We are given a snapshot of a poignant moment but never know if the fox successfully eludes these birds of doom.

Fortunately, Brian's fox--which he describes as "big, healthy, and fluffy-tailed"--is in less danger as it slips through the woods behind his house. Those crows are just marking its path, hoping to usher it out of their neighborhood. Though I have a feeling it will leave when it wants to leave.

We don't think of foxes as predators because they aren't big and ferocious like lions, tigers, and bears. Only when they're rabid do they scare us. A sort of combination of cat and dog, the fox lives near our houses without fear, inviting our familiarity while remaining wild, true to itself. (Though Russian scientists recently domesticated the silver fox in about 50 years of selective breeding.) In Western tradition, the fox's craftiness has long been celebrated in stories--from the wily fox of Aesop's fables to the sly trickster fox of British and American folklore. Fox-hunting has persisted as a tradition for so long in part because of the challenge presented by the quarry, which often outfoxes all those horses and hounds. In Japanese folklore, the fox is a trickster of more sinister aspect, a shape-shifting creature similar to a werewolf.

I could go on and on. Clearly, a rich tapestry of stories and traditions resonates around the fox, and even now most of us thrill to see a healthy one, its bushy tail waving and red fur glowing as it watches us with bright eyes and then disappears into the woods. With all its cultural baggage, a fox is more than just a fox--it's the embodiment of craftiness, survival, adaptation, and natural beauty. And a fox in the fog, camouflaged by leaves--is it just a fox or some kind of visiting spirit?

Marked by yelling crows,
fox the color of dead leaves
slips through autumn mist.