Leveler Poetry Journal
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Aubade after a Dream of Fox and Pines

 

We fit together, planked fence against

a forest. But what if I had never found

you, if the fox had eaten that egg before

it hatched? More than half a life together,

and I still cannot fathom the answer.

 

I feel no need to stay wild, and yet

I have not grown fully tame. I ramble,

dig up truffle and shit, come home stained

with both to find you still welcoming.

I have made a fine choice, I think,

 

nuzzling the soft hairs at the back

of your neck. How brazen to say that love

is a choice. Damn the pines with their keen

needles. What good are pines anyway

except to shade our union, bless it?




Donna Vorreyer

levelheaded: Aubade after a Dream of Fox and Pines

 

The image of a “planked fence against / a forest” is visually striking. It’s ominous. And comforting. The word “against” suggests two things physically touching. It also suggests two things in opposition to one another. As if conscious of this crueler interpretation, the speaker ponders, “But what if I had never found / you.” What follows is a poem that is not without conflict, but that seems set on highlighting the speaker’s gratitude for having this other person in her life.

 

“Aubade after a Dream of Fox and Pines” welcomes figurative interpretations. Going back to that opening image, we can consider the origin and functionality of a fence at the edge of forest. A “planked fence” is presumably a wood fence. If the speaker is forest or fence, the “you” she addresses is of the same material. The forest makes the fence. The fence marks the forest’s beginning. The forest is dark, mysterious, wild. The fence—human-made, domestic—protects the forest.

 

Yet, the speaker “feel[s] no need to stay wild,” likely a reference to her pleasure in having chosen to settle down with a partner. She also has “not grown fully tame.” If this is a love poem, sure, it’s a soft, tender love marked by nature and nape nuzzles, but it’s not a dull one.

 

Told here is the story of a relationship in which the speaker often screws up (“I ramble, / dig up truffle and shit, come home stained”) and is still accepted, returning “to find you still welcoming.” It’s a relationship, a love that is chosen (“I have made a fine choice, I think”; “How brazen to say that love / is a choice.”). And, despite the world being ever-capable of letting fall another of its needle-sharp moments, this is a union the world seems to harbor and to bless.

 

 

– The Editors