I watch the Fox from a hilltop
traverse the land outstretched, hedgerow and ditch,
hillock and furrowed ground,
only the wind in my ears

He ran like an endless drum-roll
to the piston beat of his wild heart,
a hundred hammering hounds behind
bristling red wire hair and slavering jaw.

Leaping and tumbling rolling on,
he shimmies through stone walls
now out in the open,
his life measured in closing yards.

In silence I see his demise
the baying the snapping and tearing,
the hound-dog heads soaking red
limb from limb till life is gone.

All this and the breeze blows on
no sound just moving air,
down in the village “The Huntsman” opens
and the kill is relived with riotous joy.

There is no “Huntsman” pub in the Parish, in the village of Medborne there is the “Nevill Arms Inn and restaurant” which sits in the heart of the village and upon which my imagination focussed.