ODE TO THE MUSKRAT


The last apples of summer
	had fallen just before
the storm came and laid down
	its fleece,
bringing the hardness
	of the arctic white to the canal
-- I'm not one of those
	who finds winter's peace
a welcomed comfort --
	nor in that judgement 
could I find myself
	scarcely alone,
for at least one other
	shared my displeasure,
forced to look 
	for a nearby loan
of a residence to hold up in
	through all the cold
and hardness that would hold
	for awhile;
the ducks could not swim there
	and neither could he,
so he took refuge
	within my woodpile.



Fattened and slick,
	he'd sit there and look;
propped up on his hinds
	he had sat,
sniffing about with his
	file tail stuck out,
I had seen him --
	my tenant muskrat.
My first reaction
	was to cringe at this rat,
until I realized
	whom I was dealing with here.
He burrowed the snow
	like an otter that noon
for the apples
	that he knew were near,
and then I sat a big red one
	out there for him
and stood by
	in the window to wait
for him to go for it,
	but I soon found out
careless abandon
	was not a muskrat trait.


I could imagine him
	sitting within some crevice,
peering out from
	the woodpile inn,
watching that big red apple
	just sit there
and deciding several times
	to begin
outward to nab it,
	but with a false start
each time -- but next day,
	it was gone,
and I imagined him munching
	away on that lunch
and the tree
	that would grow there before long.


The night after New Year's,
	as I lay asleep,
a ruckous broke out
	in the front yard,
but when I looked out
	from my half-opened lids,
I imagined seeing 
	my find tenant guard.
Yet with morning 
	and with the light
as I turned 
	after securing my latch,
all across the snow-cover
	were patches of blood
and all about
	multitudinous dog tracks!



A fresh layer of snow
	soon blanketed
the scene of 
	my tenant's demise,
the savage act of 
	some itinerate hound
whom my guest happened
	to meet by surprise --
all I ever found
	was a little black nose
with some whiskers afixed
	yet to each side,
and a part of a tail
	(and a few inner parts
which a neighborhood cat
	liked when he tried).


When Spring returns
	and the canal is not hard
and the ducks and
	the geese and the crane
return to the current
	as they are wont,
still the nights
	cannot be the same,
for the prowling sub
	will not mark its course
through the waters
	to the boathouse, and I
will be the sadder
	and more alone for the loss
-- but I thought muskrats
	were much more sly.
My inheritance woodpile
	is dwindling away
as I curse
	the wintery blowing blast
-- not that it stays
	as long as it does,
but comes at all --
	not soon enough will it pass.

1985

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