As dusk’s rich vistas slip away,
And daylight begins its slow decay.
High-pitched squeaks take sudden flight,
As horseshoe bats cut through the night.

A bittern boom carries far and wide,
Rousing those who nest and hide.
No soul can tell just what it says—
Perhaps it’s a warning: “Mind your ways?”
With long neck arched, its echoes shout,
A trembling sound spreads all about.

A tawny owl watching from the border,
hoots the last day’s end order.
As silence makes its final call,
darkness arrives to cradle all.

But not all.

Amid the shadows down below,
A red fox slinks, his amber eyes aglow.
He moves with grace through ghostly space,
A flickering flame in twilight’s face.
Then merging with misting air;
Only stillness knows he once was there.