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LISTENING TO FOXHOUNDS When in that gold Of fires, quietly sitting With the men whose brothers are hounds, You hear the first tone Of a dog on scent, you look from face To face, to see whose will light up. When that light comes Inside the dark light of the fire, You know which chosen man has heard A thing like his own dead Speak out in a marvelous, helpless voice That he has been straining to hear. Miles away in the dark, His enchanted dog can sense How his features glow like a savior's, And begins to hunt In a frenzy of desperate pride. Among us, no one's eyes give off a light For the red fox Playing in and out of his scent, Leaping stones, doubling back over water. Who runs with the fox Must sit here like his own image, Giving nothing of himself To the sensitive flames, With no human joy rising up, Coming out of his face to be seen. And it is hard, Drowning With Others 5 3 When the fox leaps into his burrow, To keep that singing down, To sit with the fire Drawn into one's secret features, And all eyes turning around From the dark wood Until they come, amazed, upon A face that does not shine Back from itself, That holds its own light and takes more, Like the face of the dead, sitting still, Giving no sign, Making no outcry, no matter Who may be straining to hear. 54 ...

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