Brett Weston

               

                                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 (1930-1998)

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