Accounted For

The Return

15 The Return Hint of the familiar, glimpse of rough notes on leaves, illegible scrawl across the green and nickel underbrush . . . Drifting now with a cloud above the long grasses and goldenrod, you let fall your shadow. At the shoreline, only light. Today, with breath held back, the old camera lens focuses on an upturned muzzle, thirst quenching at a bright cobbled rill. The hunter’s shack, and sugar maple with huge buttressing roots, the same as yesterday— Should the dogs let loose on your burning scent, I would, you know, become the hunt saboteur, preferring for you the sun’s lattice, your black-tipped ears twitching over an easy-going gait, and without fail, that fine-tuned gekkering. With time wholly consenting to the sudden jink, I’m thinking positively—That is you, my brother, fox—always moving, always the one father called “Go.” In your eyes, that giveaway glint, gold foil and there—some rustling around an old pack of cigarettes, a few coppery beech leaves— You, undoubted, newly accounted for. ...