First Fox Here in 30 Years!

By on Feb 3, 2018 in Poetry

Fox with dreamlike colors

An adult fox rockets out from the usual darkness
between our house and the dark house next door!
We wait breathlessly in our dark parked car.

The fox glides with its nose aimed low
before the steady flow of a long tail that
seems to propel its dreamlike streamlined body!

It accelerates like it’s late for an important launch,
or lunch date with that worried White Rabbit who led
fallen Alice through the weird wildness of Wonderland.

The fox doesn’t seem to see or smell us watching
from our quietly ticking car, or it can’t care
as it masters its mysterious midnight mission —

crossing our yard and silent street without
even checking for giant speeding roaring
things with round dangerous feet.

After reaching the other side of the road
this fiercely focused predator prefers
the paved sidewalk and continues on

quickly uphill toward the closed business district
of our outfoxed town. Wake up neighbors!
Something wild is running around!

About

While sitting, once a week in an old paint-spattered Ford in the mid fifties with his father who was a glider mechanic in Sicily during World War 2, R. Steve Benson listened to his dad invent playful funny words and stories to entertain him while his big brother Barry (co-author of their two published books of poetry: Schooled Lives: Poems By Two Brothers, and Poems By The Skunk River Valley Boys) was having his weekly private accordion lesson... Years later, Steve found a quote by the critic Helen Vendler: "The play of language is the chief cause for the aesthetic success of any poem." Thanks Dad!