March Ahead

Blustery March
is threatening to bound in
like a lion,
heralded for me by
thunderstorms this afternoon
and more wild weather
on the weekend, as we move into
the last few days
of February.

Lew Sarett's words,
"Walk softly, March,"
came to my mind when
I read the forecast
this morning.

"Four Little Foxes,"
which I encountered
in my high-school days,
is hard to locate on-line
--at least, it's hard
to find all four stanzas.

But it's in two
places.

I found it first on Foxfire,
with a musical accompaniment,

http://www.geocities.com/stumpydog1/foxfire.html

and, second, as one of Mrs. Acton's
favorite poems.

http://aacton.gladbrook.iowapages.org/id19.html

You have to scroll down past
her all-time favorite, Robert Frost's
"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening,"
to get to Lew Sarett's
"Four Little Foxes."

It's worth the scroll, bittersweet
though the poem truly is.

While I was searching for it,
I came across Lew Sarett's obituary,
in the August 18, 1954 Beloit Daily News.

http://www.beloit.edu/~libhome/Archives/acoll/alum/sarett.html

There's a fine, meditative picture of
him in that article, which cites
"Four Little Foxes"
as one of his best-known poems.

And I now present it here,
as one of my own best-loved:

Four Little Foxes
by Lew Sarrett

Speak gently, Spring, and make
no sudden sound
for in my windy valley yesterday
I found
New-born foxes squirming on
the ground,
Speak gently.

Walk softly, March, forbear
the bitter blow,
Her feet within a trap, her blood
upon the snow,
The four little foxes saw
their mother go,
Walk softly.

Go lightly, Spring, oh give them
no alarm;
When I covered them with boughs
to shelter them from harm
The thin blue foxes suckled
at my arm,
Go lightly.

Step softly, March, with your
rampant hurricane
Nuzzling one another and
whimp'ring with pain,
The new little foxes are shiv'ring
in the rain,
Step softly.

By Lew Sarett, a poet, a professor,
an outdoorsman and guide.

I wish we could imagine a happy
ending here.

Lew Sarett
was an accomplished
outdoorsman.

I hope he found
a way to look after
those little foxes
so that they grew up
and lived good little fox
lives--
in Michigan or Montana,
or in the poet's head--
wherever Lew found them.