From the glade the vixen turns

Ferns swallow her tail last

Fast-footed sentry

Plenty vulpine mouths await

 

Pearl globes of dew

Glued to glossy grass blades

Sway in the breeze

Pleased to breathe

 

Cool air, gold light

Biting frost a memory

Of entropy, and in the trees

Leaves chatter, damp feathers

Spreading, tight ligaments shudder

And under the bough

How the millipedes and worms

Squirm and twist to hide

Abiding not the early bird

Murder in the small hours

In the tall flowers,

Cowering in the mud

 

Yonder flash of fur

Furtive scamp’ring vole

Shoaling boatmen on the lake

Breaking not the surface

Her face, mother swan

From white plumage arises

Skyward, cygnets trumpet hungrily

Under thee, dawn cloud

Proud and yellow

 

Blood-beaked owl

Cowled in bark

Dark and sleepy now

How late the hour is