Friday Find: A poem and an explanation

There is nothing as free
as a fox
cavorting with the rain.

The fox chased a skunk, but recognized its mistake in time. I was taking shelter under a tent, hoping for a break in the rain. After abandoning the skunk, our vulpine friend hopped from puddle to puddle in an empty parking lot. It was good to see someone enjoying the weather.

While we're at it, a better poem, by Ted Hughes.

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.

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