Gray Fox, A Resolution of Sorrow

WHEREAS, the fox would stand still blinking at the swingset’s blur among the leaves and ratcheting of chains and how by this we knew that she had mastered something of the twitch that deeply gripped her.

WHEREAS, the fox would cross that edge so lately shuddering limbs upon the bass and strobe of storm that she did not, that once, remarkably appear at the accustomed hour, though from the rain-lit panes we watched for her and too were shaken.

WHEREAS, the lithic gloom or chambered stump in which she curled belatedly remained, though very near, unknown to us.

WHEREAS, the fox was seen so recently upon the asphalt twisted dimmed by vultures flapping branchward that we did not at first know her who had by then unraveled down the actual trunks and through the hollow where we slept.

WHEREAS, she was omnivorous and monogamous both and by these traits we recognized her weaving shape across the slope where broomsedge marked her coat in grizzled light.

WHEREAS, she was seen that winter once to whirl upon the night’s white crux and sideways glitter flakes into the cloud through which she spun and passed our flashlit grasp.

WHEREAS, three kits at last confirmed the summer’s wax, their black-tipped tails still dripping from the glaciated span in which their kind had first appeared and then dispersed.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT HERE RESOLVED that we express our appreciation and our sorrow.

FURTHERMORE, be it directed that this resolution shall be spread upon the minutes of that hour between now here and nowhere and the meeting of the creek’s blue flank where, by her prints, she was known to pass, and that a copy of same shall be provided to the wind.