“Mole,” I tell Ana. Just turned three, she has never seen you.
I tell her that you live in the tunnel hidden underfoot the place
we step on, soft ruffled soil broken
by the work Mole must do because spring is calling all
things to life. I do not tell Ana that Mole has blind eyes.
“What’s that?” Ana points to a thing sticking up in the middle
of the mole-run, a machine that means business – like a guillotine.
“Mole trap,” I tell her. I do not tell her what it is for – seven such traps
set throughout the grassy spaces of my sister Mary’s lawn
and barnyard –
a maze made by Mole and its sisters and brothers.
I do not tell round-eyed Ana that Mole’s blind eyes are too tiny
too fur-shaded to see surprise of tooth and nail ahead. I tell her
Mole is this long – measuring with my fingers – and is furred
and big around as a large lollipop
and has four paws with claws somewhat like hands –
the front two to scoop and shovel earth –
and has a narrow pointy snout and short tail at the end.
Three-year-old contemplative, Ana bends close to the tunnel
tells Creature Mole, its body wholly hidden in the dark,
“Mole, I want you to come out.”
Ana’s own work calls her –
blackened walnut hulls become bowls of shriveled corn grains
for squirrels. Last summer’s leaves don’t crunch
under stomping pink-strap shoes, but when lifted
they anoint her hair as she scoops and sings,
“All the leaves are falling down, falling down . . .”
Then my sister’s cry, “Caught a mole! Come see!”
Mouth an O, Ana jumps up. Arms and legs wound around me
she holds tight with her whole body.
Mole lies underside up on the back step
little leathery paws reaching like fingers spread.
Mary turns the body with a stick.
Ana sits close, seems not to see the red fleck in the fur, seems not afraid.
I do not tell her Mole is sleeping.
I do not tell her Mole is alive.
What can I say of count about another who for itself cannot speak
of its creaturely perfection, of its work in the deep cavern
where it births its young
a cavern deeper than the tunnel bistro where it feeds
not on roots and grass, but grubs.
Ana bends closer. “I touch it?”
Her hand beneath mine, I guide her finger to touch until
time pierces me and I pull her touch away
but she breaks free to reach with her whole hand
her body forming an arc above Creature Mole to see at eye-level.
“It’s a am’imal,” she tells me, wonder in her words.
Palm down, she strokes Mole’s fur
snout to tail, the whole body.
Note: The title is suggested by Robert Lawson’s children’s book, Rabbit Hill. Sightless Mole says to Willie the field mouse, “Willie, be eyes for me.”
Margie Dimoplon
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