The animals in the woods scramble for life
behind my well-stocked, contemporary condo
Something is crying.
It pierces my dreaming back,
a short guttural yelping, as if
half bird, half dog
demands rescue
pull of this mother
from the magnetic bed
in-witch
I'd a restless dream
searched for
vanished tribes and
all that is wild
that is
no more ably wandering
upon the surface
of this earth.

It is bellowing out
a yelping grief
filled sound that to my ears demands
that someone, ANYBODY, respond

I feel
I have no choice
but to be pulled
up out
my refuge,

I slip slowly
from my sand castle
bed where I'd been softly
sinking,
into the night air
behind the deck.

Where is that sound coming from;
the little thing, or perhaps
it was some being; large and broken, bewildered,
in need for
what
can I bring it from
in the civilized world,
into whose corner I've drifted and receded against
my better judges.

I patter out barefoot; the grass is wet.
I call as if to a child, whatever it be, for I can't yet see it .
Within a couple of minutes of calling out
I am worrying
about my neighbors,
not because
I will disturb their sleep,
for the creature, whatever it is, is louder,
but because
They Might Think I'm CRAZY

for wanting to help
something
I can't see
that
is wild.

And I am so ashamed.

Of what we have become.

ii.
So I called to the wild hurting being not knowing
what
it was that I sought
out from those precious few woods

behind my house, called to it to come
out and face me,
although I could do next to nothing.

Within minutes
the small fox appeared, came
all the way out of it’s
habitat
onto the lawn with
the sprinkler still going,
in the misty rain

stood there as if waiting for me to produce or perhaps
be his mother.

ii.
Crazy woman
out here at 2 am
playing mother Teresa or Saint Francis
and whatever on Earth
do I really think I can do about it anyway?
And what on earth CAN I do about it anyway?

iii.
a small fox emerges and stands
staring at me in bewilderment
a long time,
I am able to offer
I'm sorry.

just apology;
and my eyes
seeing his need.

Finally he darts back into the woods, howling
all the louder


v.
perhaps he’d expected something
more and
and my heart breaks as it
scurries off crying
into the woods.
I have been rejected
and what the hell could I have done anyhow.