sleeping out
No wind in the pines — I didn’t believe the forecast yet pulled my bivvy bag part-way under the awning where I could still see the stars.
When I woke, it had snowed a light coverlet on me; more — say two inches — on the ground and melting already so the tracks of a creature
which had stalked round my unknowing body were hard to decipher, their indents collapsing: four-toed I thought —
a fox’s most likely or were the prints wider, the tread of a wildcat? Some moist muzzle had leaned close by my head
breathing my breath and eavesdropping dreams while taking my measure along and back then around — much the same as the way
I might sniff at a spraint or track deer-slots to a lair, as if I might bed down too, try out how the world feels from there.
Jane Routh
