Fox
Alice Oswald, British born 1966
elected Professor of Poetry, Oxford University in June 2019
from Falling Awake, 2016
Mt. Cuba, Hockessin Delaware, 2018. Legacy of the Lammot du Pont Copelands
I heard a cough
as if a thief was there
outside my sleep
a sharp intake of air
a fox in her fox-fur
stepping across
the grass in her black gloves
barked at my house
just so abrupt and odd
the way she went
hungrily asking
in the heart’s thick accent
in such serious sleepless
trespass she came
a woman with a man’s voice
but no name
as if to say: it’s midnight
and my life
is laid beneath my children
like gold leaf
Fragment of a gold wreath, Greek, 330-320 BCE, sheet gold, from a tomb in the Crimea on the northern shore of the Black Sea.
On display at the Metropolitan Museum, NY in 2019 on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Je me souviens d’un documentaire qui supposait que cette couronne de feuilles d’or, ou une semblable, pouvait être la couronne d’Alexandre le Grand.
Les lieux et dates correspondent en tout cas.
I understand because I was surprised that no mention was made of Alexander the Great. I decided that I was imagining connections which don’t exist. But I agree with you, there is a similar gold leaf crown which has been associated with Alexander the Great somehwere in some collection……….Sarah