A single bulb, a dying buzz and light

  Too high above to reach, too dim to see

  But half a handbreadth out into the night

  Within the circle, sepia debris

  Thin-scattered remnants of his memory

  “Again! Again! This hellish yellow hall!

  Awake! Awake, or how long can I crawl?”

  The buzz again, the lightbulb in its place

  But pricking up his ears and turning ‘round

  The lines of terror faded from his face

  Those grainy walls by which the room was bound

  Were mute, where from the void had echoed sound

  And standing, shedding sheets to stretch and yawn

  Without another thought he carried on

  “Fine morning,” said the fox, fixing his nest

  Where on the floor it lay, a scattered heap

  The blankets, tattered, made for sorry rest

  But Khazemil had nowhere else to sleep

  Across the room he set the tea to steep

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  “A night alone, and still I see the dreams,”

  He muttered, “Nothing changes, as it seems.”

  A house, a room, a table, and a chair

  A mother and a father down the row

  A gray embossed high-collared robe to wear

  A path of dust to walk before the snow

  And nothing more to learn, to seek, to know

  His breath, still tea-warm, curled tongues of mist

  His paw massaged the aching in his wrist

  The slanted wooden shanties sighed at him

  As Khazemil paced early through the fog

  Aligning every step upon a whim

  “I don’t suppose I’ll see the dear old dog,”

  Ho-hummed the fox, external monologue

  “I’m up before the sun again today,

  And father’d punish me for such delay.”

  It was the moving out, the moving up

  It was a harvest day, a harvest moon

  Accompanied by just his simple cup

  Embraced, abandoned, quiet afternoon

  The vigil day had come and gone so soon

  Beyond the final village-fence, the field

  Beneath the close and settled mist concealed

  “‘Move out, the sting of parting doesn’t last!

  Why should it when we’ll see you reaping grain?’

  How could they be so cold to shun our past?

  And why hold me, their son, in such disdain?

  ‘The way of things?’ The way of needless pain!”

  A cry stuck in his throat, Khazemil keeled

  Then twitched, and stood, and smiled at the field

  ?