Woodchuck

A low brown ghost,
He ducks and ‘umbles fatly off
Into the underbrush at my approach,
Cracking dead branches, bringing
A snow of crab apple blossom down
About his keen ears: in my head
I hear his heart thump blubbery ribs.
We share this ragpatch of land
Between houses, under a cache of
Leaf-years, the morning croon of doves,
Ululation of jays in the high locust.

He’s gone from sight to ground, into
The glimmering spinach green space
That spring and the imminence of summer
Have brimmed with yellow celandine, white
Mustard garlic, the mild erotic pinks
Of phlox and wild geranium. Entering
Those braided depths, to dump with
The rest of the dead my arm loads of
Cut grass, spiny prunings of rosebush and
Supple young locust, I stop, listen a minute
For his husk and scuffling in the fragrant
Silence. I know he’s frozen his tracks
To hark at my foreign blundering about
His dwelling place, and I feel a hair
Trigger thorn of fear flutter in my
Throat: what if he snaps from cover,
Clasps an ankle, won’t unsnag at the
Screech and salt blood staining
His teeth, won’t let go this once
For all his lumped, crumpled brothers
On the highway’s verge, at the lip
Of ditches? By nature pacifist,
He doesn’t, but hunkers in his shell
Of silence and shadow, listening
To the air unravel its spool of
Family secrets, till I’m gone and his
Kind of peace settles, nesting. I bundle
My bristling armsful on the heap and
Leave this ragged green breathing space
To his stolid spectral self, the harboring
Coil of his homeland fattening round him.