I saw a muskrat in the park
chewing grasses with perfect attention
in a pool of sunlight that rendered gold
the tips of her glistening chestnut hair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019d seen her before
at just the end of the dark
swimming the shallow stream that
arteries the park \u2013
just a smooth parting of the water,
then her endearing waddle
as she brought from the bank
the right twig, longer than herself
and fringed in new leaves.
Clasping it firmly in delicate jaws
she melted into the water and swam again
and with a flip disappeared
into a hole in the bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was pleased to know she was there
going about her business,
and confident in her wisdom
to come out only before dawn,
before joggers and dog-walkers,
before skittish mothers could cry \u201cRAT!\u201d
to the park authorities in their ill-fitting green costumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today she sits in the sun.
Civil and lovely.
Surely she deserves to sit in the sun?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Does she think people so kind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw a muskrat in the parkchewing grasses with perfect attentionin a pool of sunlight that rendered goldthe tips of her glistening chestnut hair. I\u2019d seen her beforeat just the end of the darkswimming the shallow stream thatarteries the park \u2013just a smooth parting of the water,then her endearing waddleas she brought from the bankthe … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-Ic","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2741,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2740\/revisions\/2741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Paulette Callen has returned to her home state of South Dakota in retirement, after 30+ years in New York City. Varying degrees of culture shock in both directions \u2014 but always, the space she returned to has been made home by a dog.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"