(in memory of Anna-Marie Taylor)

It came into view
At the wrong time,

As I spoke of poetry,
Of R.S. Thomas,

To a room of students
In a tired afternoon.

I turned from the board
And my track of felt pen,

And saw in the frame
Of three long windows

A fox moving across the field,
Searching the grubby common.

“Fox!” I exclaimed, “fox!”
Relishing the name,

The medieval word,
As all turned around.

As, its head down low,
It nosed its way through

The slowed-down moments;
Its brush, its prize,

Lengthening its size, as it
Made its dogged way,

Right out of our view
To some other time.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2016