Where I live, there are lots of groundhogs. I see them all the time, but not during winter. Last spring, as the world was finally coming back to life, I saw one who also saw me. This poem came to me then. Happy Groundhog’s Day!
Most of the trees and shrubs
Have begun to bud.
As I walked past a field
Of last year's grass and frozen mud
I saw a groundhog waddle toward
The bank beside me.
He ducked behind a culvert pipe
But didn't crawl beneath.
He waited 'til I passed beside him —
Peaking like he wondered what
This thing that moves so high above,
And with so strange a strut,
Might be or do or be and do,
Or how he smells or how he sounds —
And then, when I could see his face,
He swiftly climbed beneath the ground
Into a hole where, I assume,
He has a blanket and a book,
And having gathered vegetables,
He hums as he begins to cook.
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