She arrived before we did ...

She arrived before we did this summer month of June

to open up the lake, arriving early

in the quiet of the uninhabited camp unopened,

before our smell, our noise, our humanness

drove her out, this fox, a vixen, hobbling,

one foreleg held gingerly, barely touching the earth before her;

driving in, gravel and slate crushed below us, crunching,

we saw her, dark and sleek and rusted-red,

her nose, pointed, black, and black-footed, lightly touching,

her tawny lightness disappearing soundlessly

into the underbrush beyond the well, our engine’s

pitch and whine, unnatural, out of place, human,

unsafe to her family of pups, four following her,

we discovered later, one morning rising early,

following her in the shadow’s cool darkness

surrounding this summer home we shared, we and them,

four reduced to three by summer’s peak,

lost, we hoped, imagined, wanted to believe, lost

to nature’s causes, nature’s ways, fearing, perhaps,

it was us, somehow, man’s intrusion, unnatural;

we saw her infrequently in summer’s months,

a quick glimpse of an evening’s dash across the yard,

a small catch, a mouse, a squirrel, lifeless in her mouth,

or an early morning stroll, pups behind, following, single file;

and then she was gone, going, as nature does, in season,

beyond our reach, unseen, unknowing,

out beyond our smell, our noise, our humanness,

our lives, though, blessed in her visitation,

her tawny lightness, a vixen, hobbling, lightly touching us,

disappearing soundlessly into the underbrush of our lives.