Mink

A mink,
    jointless as heat, was
tip-toeing along
    the edge of the creek,

which was still in its coat of snow,
    yet singing—I could hear it!—
the old song
    of brightness.

It was one of those places,
    turning and twisty,
that Ruskin might have painted, though
    he didn’t. And there were trees
leaning this way and that,
    seed-beaded

buckthorn mostly, but at the moment
    no bird, the only voice
that of the covered water—like a long,
    unknotted thread, it kept
slipping through. The mink
    had a hunger in him

bigger than his shadow, which was gathered
    like a sheet of darkness under his
neat feet which were busy
    making dents in the snow. He sniffed
slowly and thoroughly in all
    four directions, as though

it was a prayer to the whole world, as far
    as he could capture its beautiful
smells—the iron of the air, the blood
    of necessity. Maybe, for him, even
the pink sun fading away to the edge
    of the world had a smell,

of roses, or of terror, who knows
    what his keen nose was
finding out. For me, it was the gift of the winter
    to see him. Once, like a hot, dark-brown pillar,
he stood up—and then he ran forward, and was gone.
    I stood awhile and then walked on

over the white snow: the terrible, gleaming
    loneliness. It took me, I suppose,
something like six more weeks to reach
    finally a patch of green, I paused so often
to be glad, and grateful, and even then carefully across
    the vast, deep woods I kept looking back.