Roots

Lyrics

I never heard you coming. Only earth upon the threshold, stranger rain caught in your fur, and something that refused to run. I could have counted every step that led to the door. Instead, I left it open. Only open. Not wide. You stepped inside as though the dark were no reason to turn back. And I thought: brave. Or foolish. Perhaps the same. Velox came to faúhō, under roots, beneath the night. One crossed over the threshold, one kept the doorway wide. Outside, the forest smelled of flight. Inside, no one said: run. I know the sound of traps. The wrong kind of silence in the leaves. The branch that lies too straight. The hunger behind gentle hands. You know it too. I saw it in the careful way you touched nothing. And suddenly I wanted to know how long a foreign fox remains a stranger when you give him water, when you leave him warmth, when you never ask where the scars came from. Beside you, something in me slept that usually keeps watch at the entrance. Not completely. Only enough. Velox came to faúhō, under roots, beneath the skin. Two foxes heard each other breathing as though breath itself were loud. One knew the other’s teeth, one knew the shape of his own bite. And neither asked which of them was more dangerous. I do not fear that you might wound me. That would be simple. I fear the place where I begin to understand how I might wound you. And how you show it to me without showing it at all. I saw where your fur grows thin. I did not bite. You saw how close I sleep to the way out. You did not leave. Perhaps this is how we learn each other: not by what happens, but by everything that might have. Velox came to faúhō. The forest held its breath. No hunter. No prey. Only two shadows catching one another’s scent and refusing to disappear. Later, your silence lay beside mine. Not heavy. Not strange. I could have sent you away. You could have gone. Instead, morning came. And I, who hears every sound, forgot for the length of one breath to listen. Vulpes Velox. Faúhō Vigilans. The swift one inside the watchful one’s den. The watchful one with his eyes closed. Only briefly. Only long enough. Vulpes Velox. Faúhō Vigilans. Two names beneath the roots. Two trails crossing into one another. Neither promised another morning. Neither demanded one. The forest knew nothing. The night knew nothing. Only this: Velox came to faúhō. And faúhō let him stay.