The Chronicle of the Meditatorand the Woodland Fox

Chamnongsri Rutnin (Hanchanlash)

Photo: David Mark

It was an unacknowledged bond

that I established

with the surreptitious woodland fox

Surreptitious to others - that was -

but never, never to me.

For three bonding seconds

on that first encounter

he deigned a lordly look

and, finding me wanting,

showed me back-view of the brush-tail

and vanished in the underbrush

of the chocolate-brown embankment

where the bowing ferns flirted

with bashful herb roberts

It was such that our roads would often cross

in that verdant winding lane

I, pacing my measured meditative path

to the salubrious monastic meals

He, a russet lightning flashing across

to his fares of farmhouse delicacies

So, daily we plied

our gastronomic journeys

in our different ways

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