Favorite Poem, The Groundhog by Richard Eberhart

The Groundhog has often been anthologized because it is a powerful poem. It reminds us of our own mortality in the face of the death of an animal in nature. Exploring that same theme, Richard Wilbur wrote The Pardon about his feelings for his own dead dog. I wrote that poem of mine, Trapping Animals, about the rabbit that the site enlisted personnel were trying to kill with rocks inside the LCF fence. One of my favorite writers, E. B. White, wrote a short story called The Death of a Pig about his having to deal with a farm animal that was ill and dying.

Each of these literary works is powerful because it deals with a writer's profound feelings about death, the most significant event for all living things.

In his poem Eberhart writes about the stages he goes through over three years' time, as he deliberately, or by chance, comes upon the spot where he first discovered the dead body of the groundhog. His feelings alter over that time from powerful emotions to almost complete indifference as his intellect takes hold.

"It has been three years, now.
There is no sign of the groundhog."

But, fortunately, the author realizes his mistake and his empathy is made universal:

"My hand capped a withered heart,
And I thought of China and of Greece,
Of Alexander in his tent;
Of Montaigne in his tower,
Of Saint Theresa in her wild lament."

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