Wednesday, January 9

The Fox



Dear Poet,

Today, you woke with plan you were going to befriend a fox. I listened as you spoke about how you would follow it's track trough the forest and wait for it. As I listened to you speak about your plan i could feel my heart ache a bit and as you finished i began to speak about how i understood how tempting that may be and how we had a responsibilty to the chickens and ducks in our care to keep the fox at bay and becoming it's friend, allowing it to trust us would then make shooing him away from our feathery friends impossible. You for the briefest of seconds protested and then just liked that let the idea go. I lingered there as you ran up the stairs to find your kittens, i lingered gazing through the window because while i was convincing you that befriending a fox was not good idea, i was wanting to do the same. you see when i was a child your age i talked to animals, real ones and the ones that i saw on the walls of  my mind, i believed then that they understood me more than any human could, as  i grew i talked to them less and for a decade or so i went silent but then heartache came and    build this wall and i started to fill those walls with real animals, dogs, horses, chickens, ducks cats and i dedicated myself to them the best i could, i would run to my horses when my heart hurt and spill all my brokenness to them, the dogs would lay on my legs when they ached as i bled, i would watch the chickens and ducks interact and swear that if other humans could see how they lived and cared for each other, the world with heal. You see my dear Poet, somehow i be friended all of them, the crow that greeted me on the hammock, the woodpeckers that played among the sunflowers as i picked vegetables, the chipmunks that no longer ran as i filled water buckets, the two coyotes that i felt sorry for.... i can whisper, speak openly to them and although i don't know how all the animals i have cared for and seen  feel about me what i do know is somehow, i am me among them and if that is what you are feeling my darling than i say you must befriend the fox....



( listening to this as i write)

3 comments:

megan saltzman said...

beautiful, Nadia. you are Poet are close with and enjoy the realness that we really are, just animals and earth and ephemeral harmless things...

Red Sky Gal said...

As always..so very beautiful Nadia.Your words to Poet are so touching and gentle. The best kind of momma,you are.

Unknown said...

Nadia,

I have wanted to tell you this, but I have not seen you since you moved.

I have had the most crushing year. I got a divorce from an abusive marriage. And, my ex husband has been awful to our little ones. They have had the worst traumatic time because he is legally entitled to time with them. The weirdest part of all this is that he now lives in the house in Pownal you had rented.

If you are ever here, write so we could meet up.

Hold me and the little ones in your heart

Rebecca