Wildlife have visited regularly
this late spring. Fox parents
play on the hillside,
followed by tiny cubs,
digging dirt for rodents.
A bold, fat woodchuck
climbs to back deck
like a second story man,
ransacks china flowerpots
before the trapper
entices him into a crate
with jam and fruit.
Now he lives in Norwich,
half an hour away,
repatriated across two interstates.
Neighbors report a mother
bear and her cubs
traversed our driveway
and headed up the meadow.
I swim alone in the upper pond
two days before summer,
an August tourist in Paris. Oh,
one of the dogs joins me
for awhile, makes lazy
serpentine circles
as she trolls for sticks, but
it isn’t the same as the spray
and splashes of children
when they searched
for weapons of mass destruction
that Saddam might have hidden,
found only water guns
while their laughter echoed
across to Hurricane Hill,
rural acres brimful. Once around
that corner you realize
there won’t be time to read
all the books you want, things
feel different somehow. Some
mornings you forget that tune
but it usually approaches
on the backs of afternoon
shadows as daylilies close
up shop, fewer and fewer
lightning bugs flash
in the evening meadow,
but for some reason
butterflies are everywhere.
