I saw prints, drawn prints
Raw prints, claw prints,
Paw prints dinted
In the winter snowdrifts
Glinting in the thinly
Splintered sun-streaks
Climbing the horizon
In unsurprising silent rising,
Of the dawning morning sky.
Fresh prints, flashed hints,
Fresh hints, fleshed, since
Something feral padded
On ungritted city streets.
In the slow-sift, show-shift
Snowdrifts misting trackless
Thankless blanket shrouds
That drowned the ground
With witnessed thickness,
Vixen's quickness tripped
And dipped so simply,
Instant printing paw prints
Inches in the winter's snowfall
Footfall followed footfall
On the football pitch the fox
Had crossed, lost in the whiteout,
Night-owl, lights-out mist
That hid the blizzard's gift
Of glistening, pristine snow.
C Richard Miles
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/paw-prints-in-the-snow/
