Jim, David, Carl and John,
Many thanks for your thoughts on this. I'm pleased you liked the poem.
Jim,
Yes, this is theme I've visited before, quite a few times, in different guises. You flag up a couple of things I'd also thought about and had played with. Should the sky be doing something other than whispering? I dunno. I guess I was thinking in part of the wind (there's a fair bit of that by the sea), and that the sky was whispering to itself and not to him, in line with his aloneness. And should the last stanza in present tense? I had tried the present, but somehow I'm happier with the past. I like that you think of him still there, though, despite the past tense -- this narrator may not be wholly reliable. So, I've left both as they are for now, though I may yet change my mind.
Carl
I hadn't thought of making the poem a single sentence. For me, there's something of a finality to "I transformed into a fox" that seems to want the sentence to stop there. I had actually envisioned each stanza as self-contained, as a separate sentence -- maybe that would be clearer if punctuated, at least to the extent of giving each stanza a capital letter and full stop at the end. Or I could lose the initial "And" from S3, I guess. I've tried to thinking a good way to connect S1 to S2 to make the poem a single sentence, but have yet to find one I like, though you've given me something to ponder.
David
Sometimes a long red tail is just a long red tail
John,
Thanks for your reading of this. I'm pleased with what's come across.BANNED POSTI do see what you mean about "by that time", though I don't know if I necessarily want to clearly imply a progression or a causal connection between taking on several characteristics and transforming, or to spell it out (though I guess maybe the poem does that anyway). I'll keep thinking on it, though. I'm often slow to recognise a good edit.
Thanks again, all.
Matt