Poems

The Poet Sees His Shadow and is Appalled

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It occurred to me that this would be a good day to look for poems about groundhogs, and thus I discovered Richard Eberhart, who was born in Austin, Minnesota in 1904.
I would like you to think I am a literate person and wise when it comes to poems, but the truth is I have read very few and know almost nothing about them. But I do like silly rhymes and absurd things.

So I was delighted to discover Eberhart, because he appears to be well regarded, yet he did not consider himself too fine an artist to write about poking a dead groundhog with a stick.

I liked the poem “The Groundhog“, especially at the beginning when the expired rodent is still fresh and Eberhart describes “the seething cauldron of his being.” But I was a little disappointed that the poem didn’t rhyme, and that he didn’t take advantage of all the comic opportunities that a dead groundhog has to offer. Intstead he turned somber and serious, bringing in Montaigne and St.Theresa. And he didn’t mention Groundhog’s Day. Not even once.

Right now, part of my day job demands that I take perfectly decent work by good journalists and twist their carefully arranged words into unrecognizable radio copy. If there is a legitimate and newsy reference to an event happening today, I insert it. This is called “aggregation.” At first I felt a little guilty about the practice, but now it has become an annoying habit. Unfortunately for Richard Eberhart, because it led me to steal his first two lines and then go off in a completely different and totally selfish direction.

In June, amid the golden fields,
I saw a groundhog lying dead.
His flanks were flat as last year’s yields.
And flattened, also, was his head.

Where once a lively creature sat,
a rotting carcass lay there, still.
In fields of wheat, he would be chaff.
In dumps at Punxsutawney, fill.

I thought, “herein a poem lies.”
The cloud of flies around him thick.
And there beneath the summer skies
I chose to poke him with a stick.

The muck and ooze that issued forth
did bubble, boil, and downward run.
The cloud of flies flew to the north
and angrily blocked out the sun.

A shadow dropped across the scene
And cast a silent, solemn pall.
The groundhog’s flanks were turning green
but this he noticed not at all.

“I’ll write a poem about death,”
I told myself, “that will not rhyme.”
“I’ll mention Rome and Greece and hair
and love and bones and sap and time.”

And somewhere in there with a wink
I’ll note the angles and obliques
of sunlight and the rodent’s stink
and winter lasting six more weeks.

Though that means nothing to our pet
who, all collapsed and in decay
is flat as any thing can get
and doesn’t think of Groundhog’s Day.

Clearly this silly rhyme is far from the sort of poem that Eberhart would actually write, and does nothing to honor him or his intent. It is, in fact, a travesty. Yet I couldn’t resist, and have no regrets.

Under what circumstances do you feel compelled, against your better judgment, to get your two cents in?

69 thoughts on “The Poet Sees His Shadow and is Appalled”

  3. Well Dale, since Mr. Eberhart is now in a similar state as his groundhog, you will perhaps not be subject to his disapproval. [but this he noticed not at all. ]

    I am an awful kibbutzer. I am working on it. I am told by the s&h’s English teacher that his writing is good. I thought she should know that I am not allowed to see it, because I will kibbutz.

    Like Hermione Granger, I feel I must, absolutely must, answer the question and/or straighten out the misinformed. Opinions, I haz ’em.

    I’m working on it.

    But I have to say, that bit of massacred poetry for today is so disgustly awful, it is great. Just had to say that.

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  4. Good morning to all. I have spoken many, many, times when I knew I shouldn’t and have supressed the memory of almost all of those unfortunate slip ups. I am particularly prone to make excessive efforts to contact people who seem to be ignoring me when I send them emails or leave messages on their phones. Once I decided to go to the home of a person who was ignoring my messages and talk to them in person. That didn’t go well. I was accused of being very rude. Of course, that person had been rude by ignoring messages that I thought were important, but I know that didn’t excuse my rude behavior.

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  5. Upon reading daily postings
    Concerning topics far and wide
    I often wonder if my coasting
    With ideas from side to side

    Are matters that see worth presenting
    Ideas that are worth their salt
    I type them up without repenting
    And send them on its not their fault

    Ideas that may have no merit
    Just spewing wryly from my brain
    The blogs become morning carrot
    Of spewing forth I can’t refrain

    Thank for the daily platform
    Poetry today the theme
    To exerxise my daily chat form
    And blow off a little excess steam

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  6. Well, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone on this blog that we’re an opinionated bunch. I try to be tactful, but often it’s not received that way. When you tell people what they don’t want to hear, it’s often not well received.

    This past Mother’s Day, the daughter of a friend asked for a donation so she could participate in the Susan B. Komen Foundation’s 3-day walk for breast cancer. I thought about it for a while. I wanted to support her, but I have had serious issues with that particular foundation for years. In the end I declined and explained why. She hasn’t spoken to me since.

    Just yesterday, Planned Parenthood announced that the Susan B. Komen Foundation has withdrawn it’s support and will no longer be funding breast cancer screenings for Planned Parenthood. I hope that my friends’ daughter will now realize I had a legitimate reason for not donating. I see a lot of outrage expressed on Facebook over this decision.

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      2. Excellent story, and the alternet article it links to is also outstanding.

        I haven’t been a Komen supporter, either. My donations go to Breast Cancer Action instead. An example of the difference between the two organizations is illustrated by a controversy involving Yoplait yogurt. BCA launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at General Mills, calling attention to the hypocrisy of putting pink ribbons on a product containing recombinant bovine growth hormone, a carcinogen. Komen chose to remain silent while accepting the funds from General Mills for yogurt lids mailed in by well-intentioned consumers. In 2009 General Mills announced that Yoplait would be rBHG-free. Dannon followed suit, and today much of the yogurt in stores is rBHG-free. It was BCA, not Komen, that was willing to stomp on some corporate toes to further their mission.

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    2. A pal of mine is a breast cancer survivor and also works in the women’s reproductive health arena in New York. Here is the money quote from her press release that I think hits the nail on the head, “It is unconscionable that the Komen Foundation has decided to separate breast cancer detection from women’s overall health, which includes reproductive health. It is precisely this type of politicization of women’s health that has characterized the war on women and threatened so many women’s access to basic quality health services.”

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    3. I didn’t know any of this and I’m just feeling very sorry that curing breast (or any) cancer has become a political football. How very sad.

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  7. I, too, have trouble keeping my mouth shut, and can be pretty opinionated. I have to be careful that I don’t editorialize too much when I write psychological evaluations. I can get pretty bossy when it comes to making recommendations, especially for children.

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  8. I usually don’t have to, but there are one or two people with whom I must be rather competetive, and with thewe folks I will do almost anything to let my point be heard – interrupt, talk louder… one is my sister (no surprise), and another friend I’ve known from birth, and a sister-in-law. Each of these persons brings out something in me that will not be squashed, and I will leave behind my usual docile nature to make a point.

    And here, of course, at times. 🙂

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  10. It is particularly hard for me to avoid saying things I know I shouldn’t say to people who are always telling me things that I am sure they should know I don’t want to hear. This dates back to my childhood when my mother was always giving me what I thought was too much advice about how I should behave.

    Too much advice
    Leave me alone
    What did you say?
    I should also leave you alone?

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  12. My husband read Mr. Eberhart’s poem and wondered what he would have writen if he encountered a dead skunk. Think how morbid that poem would be!

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  13. Of course not, no – I am a retiring violet. Never open my mouth unless I absolutely have to. Nope. Not me. I let everyone get their say, you bet. But wait, there’s this thing I have to tell you about and it’s sort of tangentially related, it’s about my best friend’s uncle’s second cousin twice removed who was in a similar situation, only kinda different and it involved a dead muskrat, or at least I think the muskrat was dead, anyway, so the uncle’s cousin did this cool thing where he fricasseed it up and fed it to his political nemesis in a hot Thai sauce…oh, and that word you said three days ago you mispronounced… (yah, I have Hermione Granger tendencies mixed with a crippling inability to tell anything but long shaggy dog anecdotes…)

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  14. Your poem moves me, Dale, in ways you could never have anticipated. But first: to answer your question, I hope by now my thoughts on this issue are well known, for I have blogged several times about them. As a storyteller, I am compelled to think of several stories each and every time the subject being discussed changes. If you mention some new topic–nightcrawlers, perhaps, or non-stick skillets–I will continue to look you in the eye while my mind is desperately searching its archives for stories I could tell on this new topic. A storyteller is utterly compelled to “get his two cents in” even when what he has to say is worth vastly less than two pennies.

    But I’m straying from my real point. I once killed a woodchuck in such a cowardly and pointless way that it became one of the formative events of my life. I should be careful to not congratulate myself too much for the ethical growth that resulted from the disgusting way I killed that groundhog. But the kid who was so proud one morning of having killed a woodchuck was, by that afternoon, deeply ashamed and appalled at his own basic lack of decency. And in the end, I suppose that counts for more than the thoughtless shooting of the woodchuck itself.

    Almost every human being, I now feel, is capable of doing things that are ethically disgusting. It is part of the human condition. Maybe the best we can hope for is that we will do something so horrible that we learn once and for all time that we are able to do such things. Honor, decency, kindness, respect for others, empathy . . . these are not our birthright. We are not born with them but must earn and learn them by sinning and reflecting on our sins. We can acquire these qualities as we grow, even though it is sadly true that in the process we might need to murder a harmless old woodchuck.

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    1. Steve. how old was this kid? And I wonder if that killing was a lapse of judgment rather than his everyday nature? I’d rather think we’re born with the capacity for both (ethically noble and ethically disgusting behavior) and then make all these choices along the way. Hmmm.. my two cents.

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      1. How old? About fourteen.

        We surely are born with the capacity for nobility and ethical ugliness. In my case, I couldn’t simply make the right choice in order to live well; I had to do something so awful that I could not avoid feeling the shame of it, even at fourteen.

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      3. Barbara: of course, that underlying ethical sense was present, as it tends to be in all of us. What is important if we are to become decent human beings is that our sense of ethics has to be nourished and respected until it finally has the power to help us do the right thing rather than just regretting our mistakes. Almost all of us can be ethical after the fact, embracing the right course of action when it is too late to take it. But we need to do better than that, don’t we?

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      4. I’m not sure that we can do better than that. We sometimes do bad things – we make mistakes. If we are truly, profoundly sorry we will learn from then and not do them again. I don’t want to continue to feel bad about the bad things I’ve done, but to put that energy into doing things from now on, better.

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    2. Steve, fated to learn the hard way 🙂 I know. I’ve got a never-to-be-revealed internal list of things I’ve said and done that continue to haunt me decades later. My daily ethical dilemmas usually boil down to whether or not to keep my mouth shut. Sounds simple. Not so much. Do you remember the scene in 7 Years in Tibet where the monks dig and rescue all the earthworms during the construction of the temple? It’s a noble thought but don’t think I’m cut out to be a monk or nun or whatever.

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      1. I’ve dug many an earthworm too, Robin, but then I put a hook in them and used them to catch fish! I haven’t figured out the nobility of that. Few of us are cut out to be monks, but maybe that’s good. They live in an ethical and physical environment with few distractions and many built-in rewards for doing the right thing. What this world needs is more people who can live in the dirty, confusing, ethically ambiguous world and make decisions that hold up under ethical circumspection afterward. And if we are to do well as we make those decisions, the searing memory of earlier mistakes can be very useful. I like your comment.

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      2. After reading of your regrets at things blurted and then regretted, I feel better about my over-guardedness. I have a list, too, even so. Regrets gnaw at me when I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. My regrets are more about things done and not done rather than said or not said.

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      3. While my list of things that I regret is also long, I can in all honesty say that I’m more inclined to regret what I haven’t said or haven’t done. This is particularly true when faced with a situation where I know that I would create an uncomfortable situation by speaking up. For instance, I have for years tolerated the racist, sexist, and political rants of a right winger who is a a boyhood friend of a mutual friend. I’ve always felt that, as a visitor in my friend’s home, I had no right to speak up and create a conflict, so I didn’t. I have since adopted the technique of simply stating “I don’t agree” and walking away from him. I’m very glad he doesn’t know what I’m thinking.

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        1. That sounds like the best way to handle it. Leaves your tongue bloody, though, doesn’t it?

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  15. In my HEAD – all the time. Out loud – somewhat more controlled. The old IYCSSNTDSAAA is still a strong rule for me. (If You Can’t Say Something Nice Then Don’t Say Anything At All). My “better judgment” usually puts the brakes on. I am sometimes in awe of those who can just blurt it out.
    Nice poemizing, DC and Tim.

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      2. thats a preposition you do while you are here on the trail i presuppose but heck thats ok you can do anything here on the trail. you dont need to leave no dang trailing apoligies

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      4. Yup, goin’ into the Glossary. I was realizing, mig, that s&h should be in there too. For the newbies, s&h refers to mig’s “son and heir.”

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        1. Thanks for the definition. I figured the “s” was for “son” but couldn’t decipher the “h”.
          BTW, the glossary is wonderful and very impressive. I love the fact that this group has created its own language.

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  16. Like Jacque, “Unfortunately, almost always.” I really try to do better though, I really do.

    Very funny stuff today, Dale. Fun reading everybody!

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    2. At the very top in a separate link underneath the picture of Blevins. (Blevins is the baboon in the photo – our namesake!)

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  20. This morning at the break of dawn,
    When peering out from baboon lair,
    With frost still sparkling on the lawn
    Did Blevins see his shadow there?
    And if his baboon courage failed
    When sunbeams struck him from above…
    If prepositions can be trailed,
    Oh what have we six more weeks of?

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  22. she waks , she talks , she wriggles on her belly like a reptile, linda the soft spoken quote maven of the blog comes to life with zingers as we all doze off to rest. she has locomotion of the brain as we all drift off……………………
    nice wrap on the day linda
    the symbolism of newt the groundhog is not even needed. the mere imagery is perfect. put a gray suit and a red tie on punxsutawney phil and he could be speaker of the house.

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