I imagine this midnight moment's forest: <br />Something else is alive <br />Beside the clock's loneliness <br />And this blank page where my fingers move. <br /> <br />Through the window I see no star: <br />Something more near <br />Though deeper within darkness <br />Is entering the loneliness: <br /> <br />Cold, delicately as the dark snow <br />A fox's nose touches twig, leaf; <br />Two eyes serve a movement, that now <br />And again now, and now, and now <br /> <br />Sets neat prints into the snow <br />Between trees, and warily a lame <br />Shadow lags by stump and in hollow <br />Of a body that is bold to come <br /> <br />Across clearings, an eye, <br />A widening deepening greenness, <br />Brilliantly, concentratedly, <br />Coming about its own business <br /> <br />Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox <br />It enters the dark hole of the head. <br />The window is starless still; the clock ticks, <br />The page is printed.<br /><br />Ted Hughes<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-thought-fox/
