The Vernal Jar

The vixen noses her way to the mouth of her den, and gives a wary sniff

Her mate leads the way, their paws puncture the snow

Four-clawed prints of warmth

Where the crystal-fluff melts softly to dampen dormant blades of grass

A pattering-path,

Her gait is shorter, wider, less playful than his

Though her prints are just as deep, for the weight she bears upon her feet

She finds a melting puddle

Where the snow thaws it pools,

Cold as crystal and just as pure

The water is still as glass

And it shimmers beneath the reach of the westering sun

She laps at the frigid puddle, her tongue scrapes invisible floes of ice

She drinks from the Fountain of Rebirth

From the puddle that has not yet bloomed

Then she retreats to the warmth of her den

And her mate stands guard

While she births their pups unto the world

As the days get longer, Winter slinks away

A front rises from the South, to roll in like a wave

And the snows begin to gush

Part time tributaries run like arteries and the lowlands flood

The pups fight for a spot to watch

As the waters rise

And the danger creeps closer

And closer

To the mouth of their den

The brave one reaches out one wavering paw and slaps the water

He flinches at the newness

But the fox and the vixen, they chose by good instinct,

The waters do not intrude beyond the brink

And when they recede

The foxes pick their way out across the field

To find a drink

The smells are chaos now,

For the floods have seeded the Winter pool,

With a million violent currents that laid a billion eggs and spores among the silt

Of cyclops

Of daphnia

Of copepods

Of hydra

And amoebae

Of bacteria and algae

The foxes splash the glittering sun-drenched waters

The damp is stagnant to the nose, so they meander on to search out waters running pure

They leave the teeming vernal pond

But at dusk, the singing frogs move in for a place to breed and spawn

And like magic, the pond is ringed with jelly by a not so distant dawn

The birds bring duckweed and fish eggs

Then the dragon flies come to lay

And the nymphs begin to prey

On tadpoles and larval fry tinier bugs

The little magic puddle froths with life,

A microcosmic sea with creatures unknown to land

The kraken and leviathan wage their wars between wet grains of sand

And when the ephemeral ocean dries and the mud begins to crack

The rains will fall upon the dust

And the petrichor shall call the sniffing vixen back

***

Authors note:

I work for a county park.

A few shifts back I found hundreds of baby fish in a puddle on our service road. I assume the eggs got washed there after a flood. I transferred as many as I could to the creek.