Paul Willason | + Follow Poet |
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The Fox Fur

I am almost embarrassed to admit 
that spread out along the armrest
of a lounge chair, a fox fur
complete with head and feet
has found a refuge in our home.
Rescued from an op shop,
it seems relaxed on its elevated bed
and sleeps with its glass eyes open,
snout closed and missing its teeth. 
It has become a novel oddity giving
an accent to the decor of the room.

Considered vermin in this country,
the fox is hunted and treated as a pest. 
A ten dollar bounty is still paid  
for each scalp whether fresh, frozen 
or dried. Vulnerable native species 
are no match for its cunning 
and killer instinct. Its presence 
in our home could be excused 
as a symbol of the righteous fight to rid 
ourselves of this villian, 
the stuffed remains a trophy to mark
the measure of our meager success
in culling it from the continent. 

But I somehow feel for the life 
that once filled this gutted creature
and all that it was in the span
of its despised existence. 
Here it has its final rest not as vermin
but more a victim sacrificed on fashions
alter, its first ancestors brought 
to these shores by wealthy landowners 
to satisfy their lust for the hunt.
This animal was no willing immigrant
but meant to be bloodsport for a few
and ripped apart by dogs.

I find myself in two minds, a part of me
wanting to erase all evidence of our 
more primitive instincts to adorn
human life with what has been taken
from other species. Yet I see how
some of its perfection has transcended life
and the furriers art and lays here
in this house, magnificent, acknowledged 
and admired, instead of being carted off, 
despised or pitied, at the bottom 
of a bin.

Copyright © Paul Willason | Year Posted 2023

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