I mind to my footing on this rocky trail, raise
my collar against the wind’s soft howl, the sound
of clattering tree branches sinking deeper than the cold.
Fifteen paces ahead a red fox scampers across my path
like a trace of sunlight through clouds, this brightness
in the muted palette of the season, small burning bush.
It knows I’m here, their hearing as good as a hawk’s
vision, but even this close it doesn’t give me a look.
As I reach that spot, he’s nearby ambling in the woods.
He hops his forelegs up on a log to gain some height and
looks back, not directly at me, scanning the area in a way
that tells me I’m nothing special in the eyes of the world,
nothing in the nothingness that is everything before names.
My image blurs, I am brought to a true accounting.
He bounded over the log, settled into an easy trot—perhaps
some gray squirrel on his mind—didn’t look back again.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 2.
D.M. Dutcher graduated from Rutgers University and writes in New Jersey. He has directed three poetry reading series, for which he wrote appreciative essays as introductions for the featured poets. His publishing credits include various literary journals such as Poetry East, Paterson Literary Review, Lips, and U.S. 1 Worksheets. He has supported himself as a fine woodworker and spent several years working at a professional theater creating the stage sets.
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