Something else is alive

Came across this (unknown, to me) Ted Hughes poem on the ever-gorgeous dovegreyreader today ...

The Thought Fox

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside 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 a 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.

Ted Hughes

I really respond to Ted Hughes’s poetry. I was taken out of the office for one brief still, powerful moment of abstraction in a busy day. Thanks, dovegreyreader. I needed that.

Frolics

Last night, while all were sleeping, I heard a Noise. Like someone was in the garden. And the security light came on. And stayed on. You can imagine how my heart leapt into my mouth. The boy L slumbered peacefully on, so I screwed up my courage and stuck my head between the curtains.

I saw a vixen and a small cub frolicking around on the patio, nipping each other affectionately and wheeling round and round playfully. They were about a foot from the bedroom doors, but couldn't see me - I guess because of the reflection - so they came close and were completely unspooked. It was delightful.

Originally uploaded to Flickr by kevinb_irl

Some people consider them a menace, I know, what with tipping over the bins and strewing the ground with greasy chicken boxes and babies' nappies, but it was beautiful, graceful and, well, kind of sweet.

It was a real reminder that while human may rule the school in the daytime, the night belongs to the animals ... even in the suburbs of London!

[http://www.thisbutterflymind.blogspot.com]