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Listening to Foxhounds
- Wesleyan University Press
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LISTENING TO FOXHOUNDS When in that gold Offires, quietly sitting With the men whose brothers are hounds, You hear the first tone Ofa dog on scent, you look from face To face, to see whose will light up. When that light comes Inside the dark light ofthe 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 ofdesperate pride. Among us, no one's eyes give offa light For the red fox Playing in and out ofhis scent, Leaping stones, doubling back over water. Who runs with the fox Must sit here like his own image, Giving nothing ofhimself To the sensitive flames, With no human joy rising up, Coming out ofhis face to be seen. Drowning with Others 29 3° And it is hard, 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. ...