Lake Superior, the coldest of the Great Lakes, is warmer right now than many old timers can remember at the end of July. And it may set a record for high surface temperature yet this year.

Which turns tradition on its head.

But one thing remains the same. Longfellow’s “Song of Hiawatha” is still the easiest poem on Earth to parody.

By the shores of Gitchee Gummi
By the boiling big sea water
Wrapped in towels there stood the bathers
Wrapped so not to moon the neighbors

There to feel the heat of sauna
There to feel the water bubble
In the Summer of the hotness
Came they there to sweat together

Watched they as the waves came crashing
Crashing on the rocks of Tofte
Black rocks baking in the sunlight
Water turns to steam at contact

Clouds of steam like in a sauna
Ancient steamy wood enclosure
by the lake it sits, neglected
With an A/C in the window

Father Nature pours his waters
on the rocks and steam arises
Now the Lake itself so hot
that bathers cannot breathe beside it

Now they’ve cooked themselves completely
Now they look for cooling waters
Waters right for skinny dipping
What the Lake once gave them freely

Gitchee Gummi, boiling cauldron
is the sauna now, a devil!
So the bathers run instead
inside where it is air conditioned

Shrieking as their skin is shocked
by air from Kenmore in the window
Shrieking as they did before
when jumping in the lake of yore.

Will this be the hottest summer ever?

Here’s a rich and surprising comment from yesterday’s conversation about animals and crime.

Vicky is right – some townships pay a bounty. At least they did as recently as 2009.
And PlainJane is also right – this is gruesome. I’m sure it has not gone unnoticed by bucktoothed bards.

The prairie’s wide and low and flat
and rich, so things may grow.
It nourishes all plants above
And critters down below.

The ones who dig feel safe at home
In tunnels that they make.
But terror runs throughout the loam
Surrounding Silver Lake.

The bucktooth Gophers rototill
Through tree roots, soft and sticky.
But when they want a secret thrill
They softly whisper “Vicky”!

She frightens everything submerged.
“A child,” they say. “Petite.”
“But watch your back when you’ve emerged.
She’ll chop off all your feet!”

A shudder shook a gopher guard
On duty by the shore.
“She killed a dozen in my yard
And then came back for more. “

Her legend, scary and profound,
among the gophers grows.
They say she’s known to carry ‘round
A bag filled up with toes!

How could a child take such delight
In sport that is so gory?
Some people say she’s not quite right.
But that’s another story.

For in the village square each day
She’s greeted with applause
They give her praise and hand her pay
When Vicky gives them paws.

What nuisance should government pay a bounty to reduce?

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?