“It’s not unheard of in my profession, to sit splay-legged under a shrub, holding a tool. Which I was. Perhaps I sat beneath a smoke bush, or a hydrangea but it was all the same, when suddenly in my posterior, and then in my chest, thundered an awakening like the galloping hooves of 100 bison. No ... no ... maybe not bison, in Brookfield, Vermont. And, as if in a dream they appeared around a corner made by a gas plant, an arborvitae and a tangle of lilac suckers, full throttle, no holds barred. I in my ball cap, they fully naked in fur, made of the same blithe, encumbered & ridiculous clue-less-ness as I’ve been known for. Woodchucks, by god. Cute as heck, and only two feet away. One, then the other, a chaser, and a follower, both fully in the throes of some urgent wood chuck ambition I wagered’d been routed incorrectly. But the way they run past me, looking over to make sure I’m watching, it rings a bell. I know wood chucks. They be friendly with cats, I’ve even seen them act goofy with other, less harmless mammals. They even be friendly, sadly, with uprights who chase ‘em with buckshot. I’m a bit unnerved by their unexpected romp, it feels intimate and targeted. I sink into an impromptu evaluation of their game plan. What the hell? Suddenly, they’re rounding the arborvitae trunk for a second lap, I kid you not! What magic has made me an investor in woodchucks? Well, I do have a special place in my heart, for any wild thing okay with me, twice. I’ve let my life go off the tracks, more than once, for unruly, charming animals. I’m ashamed, i guess, to admit, that I’ve mated with them, and had results. Which is why, the purity of the garden, is so ungodly real to me. So sacred, so off-the-books. So ungodly, that I need to explain this contradiction, more to myself, than to you. “What are you doing here, at this ungodly hour?” someone might say, when you are either in your cups or bereft for valid reasons. I dunno, occasionally we have to be leveled. Don’t ask me why, I just see it again and again, a veritable clockwork of loss. Time to go down. Time to meet “the ungodly”. Which is the opposite of dogs. Or any loyal, unshakable thing we know, that has had the audacity to say: “God, move over. I am done with crisis and suffering.” At which juncture, we look up to actually see our true life. What we’re made of, when it’s all been taken away. It’s a pillow of rose petals, because we had dirt and knew many years ago, what to put in the ground, on a happier day.”
