Fox in the Flowers

Can I speak my mind, my heart, my soul?

A darkened mist curls around me

I lose myself in its embrace

Lost amid the lingering dark

Tendrils that swirl and float

Under a purple sky and a distant moon

Sneaking and curling through trees

A figure appears among the mist

She is small and beautiful with eyes that burn with pain and a secret strength that keeps her whole

She holds onto the mist

Clinging to it and embracing it

It wraps around her and from her

She in the unclear dark looks up

She who is at home in the mists

She calls to me...

I walk among the mist and the tall, naked trees that climb into the starry sky

I bring the mist with me

It is beautiful in its comfort

And I...

I lie in my mist among small woodland flowers

They are white and pure

They are my sweet-smelling blanket

I lie back and look up at that purple sky

I see stars like distant lanterns too far away to light my misty world

Darkness is becoming me...

I am that mist that glides between the trees

I am home

I am safe

No one can hurt me

No one can light my world and I have no light to be turned out

I creep among the willowy trees and whisper to the night...

Among those soft white flowers a delicate creature lies

Her fur glistens rich russet in the light of the stars

Her bright soulful eyes watch those stars with a rapture

A vivacity

A longing

And then she sees me of the mists and smiles at me with her foxish face

Suddenly a human face on a girl's body

She says,

"You can join me but you cannot possess me

For I am not so lost to this beautiful darkness

That I can't sense the danger of your mists

Look through these clear woods

These shafts of moonlight that pierce through

They light my world amid these flowers

And what have you? Nothing?

You have my love and always have

May my love light the shadows on your face and in your heart

Because what you see is what you are and what you are is beautiful."