fox and hounds

Two orphaned fox cubs at the wildlife hospital this morning. Although I cleaned them out I was told NOT to cuddle them. It was very hard not to do so. As you can see they are the most adorable cuddly munchkins but if they associate with you they can't survive in the wild where it is hoped they will eventually go back to.

Below The hound Rocket who probably would have liked a baby fox to snuggle with so just as well I didn't bring one home which is my want. Here he is in mid play and although he only has one working eye he can see deer where the sky meets the land.

I've not seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, C beams glittering in the dark near Tannhauser Gate. But I have seen foxes run from hounds.

I've seen a tiger in the wild, a humpback whale and her calf breach the surface tension of the ocean. I've seen kittens being born. I've seen shooting stars. I've seen trees fall. And all these moments will be lost in time like tears in rain.

I told Pocket I might go and look for the attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. He stretched out where he was lounging and says Fools stand on their island of opportunity and look towards another land. There is no other land. There is no other life than this. 

You're very wise for someone who hasn't read Thoreau I say.

In spite of what he said however he did go looking for another life. 

When the poet and writer David Harmer suggested to me that Pocket might meet up with Skimbleshanks T.S.Eliot's railway cat I made the mistake of telling him and he did go missing for a few days. When he returned he was full of tales. He may not have seen attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion but he told me he'd seen the railway cat who was always busy in the luggage van, pacing, examining and supervising. He then met Rimbaud's cat drinking absinthe from a saucer in a bar. 

What did he say? I asked. I is someone else. He said. All very existential. 

He then found Wordsworth's cat wandering lonely as a cloud in the daffodil meadow and finally discovered Jane Austen's cat sitting in a bonnet telling him that life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings. Having met some literary cats he returned to the armchair content that there is no other life than his.

Rocket said he didn't want to hear about cats and bonnets and what did existential mean anyway?

Nancy said she often wandered lonely as a cloud but had decided to go up for a casting for Cats the musical. Either that or she was going to make a Collection of Pretty Poems for the amusement of children six foot high.

Below another of my dog poems