The Groundhog

The Groundhog

In June, amid the golden fields,

I saw a groundhog lying dead.

Dead lay he; my senses shook,

And mind outshot  our naked frailty.

There lowly in the vigorous summer

His form began its senseless change,

And made my senses waver dim

Seeing nature ferocious in him.

Inspecting close maggots' might

And seething cauldron of his being,    

Half with loathing, half with a strange love,

I poked him with an angry stick.

The fever arose, became a flame

And Vigour circumscribed the skies,

Immense energy in the sun,                    

And through my frame a sunless trembling.

My stick had done nor good nor harm.

Then stood I silent in the day

Watching the object, as before;

And kept my reverence for knowledge          

Trying for control, to be still,

To quell the passion of the blood;

Until I had bent down on my knees

Praying for joy in the sight of decay.

And so I left; and I returned                      

In Autumn strict of eye, to see

The sap gone out of the groundhog,

But the bony sodden hulk remained

But the year had lost its meaning,

And in intellectual chains                                                  

I lost both love and loathing,

Mured up in the wall of wisdom.

Another summer took the fields again

Massive and burning, full of life,

But when I chanced upon the spot              

There was only a little hair left,

And bones bleaching in the sunlight

Beautiful as architecture;

I watched them like a geometer,

And cut a walking stick from a birch.

It has been three years, now.

There is no sign of the groundhog.

I stood there in the whirling summer,

My hand capped a withered heart,

And thought of China and of Greece,          

Of Alexander in his tent;

Of Montaigne in his tower,

Of Saint Theresa in her wild lament.

In the melodramatic poem about the death of a groundhog, appropriately named “The GroundHog”, Richard Eberhart explores themes of loss and grief. First I’ll introduce the myth of groundhog day, as it’s older than the poem. The idea is if the groundhog sees his shadow, he goes into his hole bringing on more winter. The fear from its own shadow represents the dangerous approach of the sun, as light is needed to produce a shadow. As warned in the myth, it’s now summer and the groundhog is dead. The decay that comes to the groundhog is described as “half with loathing, half with strange love”. The speaker finds both of these feelings in the death. This represents the polarizing feeling death brings an individual. The maggots, those who feed on decay cannot live without death. Life is thrown back into the cycle.

the speaker mentions the groundhog’s transmutation as a “senseless change”. This introduces the idea that the speaker’s reaction to the groundhog is a difficult one because he is trying to make sense of death. The senseless death insinuates there’s no purpose behind the groundhog's death and therefore there’s no sense behind death in life.

There’s also a way of analyzing the poem by looking at it from a point of the 5 stages of grief. First there’s Denial. The speaker claims “my senses shook” as if there’s an impossibility at the sight he’s just experienced. Upon further observation, the speaker reacts emotionally, as “half with loathing, half with a strange love”. This is the next stage of grief. Anger. But his energy is wasted as he admits ‘my stick had done nor good nor harm”. Then the more ambiguous stage comes when the speaker beings bargaining for joy. He “prays for joy”. He cannot accept the death of the groundhog and the image on bending down on his knees is strong. Depression follows in the succession of grief and the speaker’s mood is reflected in the line “the year had lost its meaning”. The speaker cannot find meaning if death decays all that lives. The memory of the groundhog is with the speaker, but its purpose is lost on him, as he cannot see any purpose in a life that comes to an end. After three years pass, the speaker finds solace in the death. Enough time has past to lead the speaker to the last rung on the ladder of grief. He’ s reached acceptance. Now he finds the bones “beautiful as architecture”. The groundhog still leaves behind remnants of existence, but most of it has gone. The last stanza illuminates this idea of the things that remain after death. Great icons are mentioned, but as they are dead only their memory remains. Still, the speaker has come to a point where he knows that death is a natural process. Great figures may stand, but all fall to death; however like the groundhog’s bones, remnants of their existence remain whether in history, memory, or direct impacts on the world.