The red fox came,

sudden,

like the spooking of a haint.

Loping like he owned our meadow.

Like the squirrels gleaning

sunflower seeds and suet chunks

tossed across the feeding ground

from the beaks of cardinals and thrashers,

were his servants cleaning his kitchen

after his midnight haunt.

Brazen, that fox!

Sending gray and brown squirrels

in horrified, haphazard scrambles

to the tree tops,

squawking warning to their compatriots,

echoed by frightened grackles and angry Jays

perched on the highest branches.

But that too-big-to-run black fox squirrel

was too slow to flee,

so was caught atop a shepherds crook

in all the pandemonium,

claws and paws fear frozen

to an iron grilled suet holder

while the fox circled below him,

plotting menace.

The Fox squirrel couldn’t climb down

into the waiting hungry jaws

so,

he flew from his vulnerable perch

up into the nearby live oak

I’d planted years past.

And from there, he flew again

higher into the adjoining woodlot ,

climbing high onto the top of a loblolly tree.

Slowly the warnings quieted

until the world was silent enough

for a chickadee,

as brave as he was small,

to fly to the feeders once again.

And a brown squirrel,

as hungry as he was foolish,

crept from the bushes

to continue his early morning scavenge.

I know!

I know!

We can’t always live in a “fox is coming” world!

We can’t all scatter in panic

at each screech of warning,

each approach of the deadly fox.

We’d starve to death, always running off…

or die of some disease attacks us off guard…

so we perish in the panic.

So, somehow we just survive the day, maybe,

and somehow the fox is sated,

her kits are fed.

And all the seeds get eaten

or, come Autumn,

lovely sunflowers bloom where they fell

on the edges of the woods.

And hungry squirrels creep out,

joining the birds on the feeder perches…

And always, the fox, stalking the forest edges,

waits,

impatient to feed.