I found a dead fox
beside the gravel road,
curled inside the big
iron wheel
of an old tractor
that has been standing,
for years,
in the vines at the edge of the road.
I don't know
what happened to it-
when it came there
or why it lay down
for good, settling
its narrow chin
on the rusted rim
of the iron wheel
to look out
over the fields,
and that way died
But I know
this: its posture-
of looking,
to the last possible moment,
back into the world-
made me want
to sing something
joyous and tender
about foxes
But what happened is this-
when I began,
when I crawled in
through the honeysuckle
and lay down,
curling my long spine
inside the cold wheel,
and touched the dead fox,
and looked out
into the wide fields,
the fox
vanished.
There was only myself
and the world,
and it was I who was leaving.
And what could I sing
then?
Oh, beautiful world!
I just lay there
and looked at it.
And then it grew dark.
That day was done with...
My stomach flips when I imagine myself crawling like Mary beside a dead fox, for it is as if I too am dying and committing myself intentionally to oblivion. It's almost the same feeling I get with crossing a bridge - the water below calls to me, "Jump! Join life in death!" It is not so different than the stomach flutters of falling in love. I am but a drop and the ocean woos me.
What dead beings have you seen lately? How do you feel in your body when contemplating death?
This morning I set out to clean out my bird feeder and refill it. As I went to sit in a chair next to it was a dead mole.I moved the chair over a bit and continued my task. I kept thinking about how it died. Was my hawk that I hadn't seen in at least a year back and dropped the mole by accident? Was that hole I saw going straight down into the slope really made by a snake who had killed the mole and slithered back into it's hole when I freightedned it by opening the door?
ReplyDeleteWas the neighbor's cat who strolls across my back yard each morning the murderer? But cats take such trophies home to show to their owners.
When contemplating death I feel all pain must leave my body first, so that I can feel like I am comfortably enveloped by a warmth derived from the universe or maybe the sun on the warm earth. Perhaps the warmth is from the energy of my children through which we exchange energy. Then they will begin their conscious jouney toward death, while I have completed mine. My remaining energy will then be used to explode and reform the tiny atoms of my molecules and DNA into pieces of the universe to be found in an infinint number of objects or life forms.