Rain

A fox knows the eye of a crow well, senses the watch of one -

even mobless they can be sharp-beaked and fearless.

Who can blame them, the fox does not -

he, who knows the egg and earthworm, and

like the noise of rain or approach of hooves

under the call of human terror: a fox knows when it's wise to hide.

We huddle from rain too, but even sheltered inside

I will shudder when it thuds on panes

as if it wants to get in,

as if it wants to take everything like a bailiff,

like a fox, I will retreat.

Today it was the fall of words, too fast for comprehension and I opened my palms to break the flow, but

fingers have too many spaces, they let it all go, seep into the soil, to finally be silenced.

A fox knows what it needs to: crow, egg, lair, worm,

rain: any more would be a burden.

And when dusk sequesters, trusted to darkness - 

I see how the fox emerges as if he is a confession,

slips into the slow burn of cold light in quiet declaration of himself,

and I say, the next time sadness orbits me like a moon,

I will plant my feet in this earth, grow roots,

I will observe how water joins water,

realises the clarity of itself in new rivulets, to wonder,

unlike a fox, when all this knowing became knowledge

and how knowledge shifted to shame.

Image is from wikimedia commons: https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fox_and_crow.jpg