The Thought Fox

　　I imagine this midnight moment's forest:

　　Something else is alive

　　Besides the clock's loneliness

　　And this blank page where my fingers move.

　　Through the window I see no star:

　　Something more near

　　Though deeper within darkness

　　Is entering the loneliness:

　　Cold, delicately as the dark snow,

　　A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;

　　Two eyes serve a movement, that now

　　And again now, and now, and now

　　Sets neat prints into the snow

　　Between trees, and warily a lame

　　Shadow lags by stump and in hollow

　　Of a body that is bold to come

　　Across clearings, an eye,

　　A widening deepening greenness,

　　Brilliantly, concentratedly,

　　Coming about its own business

　　Till, with sudden sharp hot stink of fox

　　It enters the dark hole of the head.

　　The window is starless still; the clock ticks,

　　The page is printed.