When I’m feeling stuck, I often turn to my journals and notes for inspiration. For this poem, I found an entry about a red fox I recently saw hunting in a field. Once I started writing, the words flowed easily. However, I sometimes feel like the poem may come across as more contrived than it should. Still, it was a special moment, and I wanted to share it with you.

In the meadow, a fox leaps,

its coat flickering like fire caught in a breeze,

its paws brushing the earth, like thoughts—

quick, elusive, unburdened by memory.

The grasses bow beneath it

as if they, too, understand the grace of hunger,

a hunt wrapped in play

like a dancer lost in the rhythm of a song.

I watch from a distance,

considering its world is nothing but the present—

the pursuit, the leap,

the stillness of waiting.


No tomorrow to chase, no building of things

to weigh its heart down.


It lives as if the moment belongs to it

while I chase something 
that slips between my fingers

like smoke.

What would it be like

to hunger and yet not be consumed by it?

To stretch across the land with nothing but

the soft hum of being…


The fox turns,

its eyes bright and keen,

and in the sweep of its tail,

I see a life freer than my own—


If freedom is
a life without a list,

without the endless adding and subtracting

that fills my days.