Today at lunch I noticed a baby ground hog climb up on a three-foot high willow stump on the edge of the pond. I reached for binoculars and sat on the porch to watch as a parent climbed up to join in the fun. They both rubbed their ears against the rotting wood. I was mesmerized by the liquid bristle and waddle.
Give Me This
I thought it was the neighbor’s cat back
to clean the clock of the fledgling robins low
in their nest stuck in the dense hedge by the house
but what came was much stranger, a liquidity
moving all muscle and bristle. A groundhog
slippery and waddle thieving my tomatoes still
green in the morning’s shade. I watched her
munch and stand on her haunches taking such
pleasure in the watery bites. Why am I not allowed
delight? A stranger writes to request my thoughts
on suffering. Barbed wire pulled out of the mouth,
as if demanding that I kneel to the trap of coiled
spikes used in warfare and fencing. Instead,
I watch the groundhog closer and a sound escapes
me, a small spasm of joy I did not imagine
when I woke. She is a funny creature and earnest,
and she is doing what she can to survive.
–Ada Limón, originally published in Poem-a-Day, 9/16/2020, by the Academy of American Poets