Neighbors

Several years ago, I asked the College master gardener how I could control the moles and voles tunneling through my yard. He laughed and said, "Move." I have made my peace with the underground creatures: they have as much right to live here as I do, probably more.

So today when walking the path at Lake Cheston, I was shocked and, frankly, saddened to see this specimen, newly dead. At home, I looked for something that would express my sympathy and admiration for the little fellow. I found this, a poem by Wyatt Prunty, also my neighbor.

How lovely.

Mole
by Wyatt Prunty

For weeks he’s tunneled his intricate need
Through the root-rich, fibrous, humoral dark,
Buckling up in zagged illegibles
The cuneiforms and cursives of a blind scribe.

Sleeved by soft earth, a slow reach knuckling,
Small tributaries open from his nudge— 
Mild immigrant, bland isolationist,
Berm builder edging the runneling world.

But now the snow, and he’s gone quietly deep,
Nuzzling through a muzzy neighborhood
Of dead-end-street, abandoned cul-de-sac,
And boltrun from a dead-leaf, roundhouse burrow.

May he emerge four months from this as before,
Myopic master of the possible,
Wise one who understands prudential ground,
Revisionist of all things green;

So when he surfaces, lumplike, bashful,
Quizzical as the flashbulb blind who wait
For color to return, he’ll nose our green-
rich air with the imperative poise of now.