Saturday, September 10, 2022

What the Fox Knows

 



A fox has no expectations of what lies ahead.

He trails down the path where the lilacs brush across his face,

and it is always a new hello.

He deals with the seasons as they come.

A symbol of resilience he does what he must.

He has a way of enduring the shiver of winter’s sting,

and he survives to enjoy the summer’s breeze.

Never consumed with the memory of anguishing struggle

he moves onward.

I wish I could be like him,

but instead, I cry over letters that never arrived.

Every loss is a memento I store away like a ticket to a rare ballet,

for my heart is a feeble handbag filled with a quandary of old things

that were never mine to cherish., yet I fumble through it anyway.

Again I am lost over heartbreak like a girl that has astigmatism and yet no glasses,

I wander and yes, I am lost.

Somehow the fox has a deep and clear vision

of where he needs to be.

I am busy staring at an old crinkled map I cannot even read.


Linking today with Shay's Word List where this week she is featuring the poet Amy Lowell.  I had never read her writing, but was delighted to find that I love her poetry!  Thank you Shay for another wonderful prompt!

Come join us!


6 comments:

  1. Such a wonderful poem. I love the fox - and the contrast in how he and we live. LOVE your closing lines.........

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  2. Perhaps the fox is a Zen Buddhist and subscribes to "be here now"? Indeed, even the family dog lives in the moment, how much more so the wild creatures? We humans are freighted to stress about the past and worry about the future. Maybe because we, more than any other creature, are aware that we have a "story" that we are living. Like Sherry, I love your closing.

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  3. You capture so well that sense of immediacy in the image of the fox. No regrets for him, just a "new hello" - Love it. We humans on the other hand are packrats of yesterdays aren't we?
    ~Dora

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  4. I love your poems, Carrie. Sometimes they flow at the same beautiful intensity all the way through. Other times, like this one, they start gently then rise to a pinnacle of beauty that is honestly quite breathtaking. These lines in particular moved me :

    "Every loss is a memento I store away like a ticket to a rare ballet,

    for my heart is a feeble handbag filled with a quandary of old things"

    I honestly felt a bit choked! Beautiful, beautiful <3

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  5. "I am busy staring at an old crinkled map I cannot even read." Yes, what makes life such a challenge. And we see other around us who seem to see their map clearly, until we learn that none of us knows what we are doing, LOL!

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  6. I feel this way about myself a bit. With what I'm going through now I'm really on a searching path. Is there and end point at getting through something or is it the journey changes me? I love this beautiful poem. The fox for me is the teacher guiding me on how to let go of what I truly can't carry.

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