Took my daughter for a late night drive in Point Reyes last week. We both love to drive around the county at night, out by the Nicasio Reservoir, along Platform Bridge Road back to Olema, east through Samuel P. Taylor Park and the San Geronimo Valley, and back home to Fairfax. About an hour round-trip. Enough time to listen to 20 great songs, talk a bit, and generally encounter some wildlife. This night it was a fox, who ran across the road in front of the car near Taylor Campground. When I got home, having struggled with two hospice poems for weeks, I wrote this piece, all in one go. After being bogged down in not one but two recalcitrant poems, the short lines and simplicity of a fox poem were liberating.

Luminous

Almost

hit a fox

on my way home.

He ran out

small

pale brown

bushy guy

zig-zagging

in the headlights.

I swerved.

I was a

house on fire

he didn’t burn

a flood

he stayed dry.

He stayed alive

despite my

XJ8 killing machine.

I’m in my house now

and he’s free

running between trees

by the stream

awake

in his fantastic dream

alive and free

in

spite

of

me.

He might even be

curled up small

breathing

evenly

dreaming

of the luminous

whites

of a human’s eyes.