The magical simplicity of snow in moonlight offering a bonus of imaginary day, and our discovering these tracks across a pristine sheet of paddock, thrilled, you asked if I would write a poem about the mouse, the snow-white owl, the silence of attack, the zigzags of escape perhaps...or better leave the outcome, like the marks themselves, a sketch of doubt ... I've thought it out, and what I should have said was "Look at this economy : in scratches we perceive his leaping; and the strike is in these gouges; and the spread of wings and tail left prints as shadowy as was the flight ; the poem is written here already."
