‘Our naked frailty’

Groundhog gathering nesting material for its burrow.

— Photo by Cephas

“In June, amid the golden fields,
I saw a groundhog lying dead.
Dead lay he; my senses shook,
And mind outshot our naked frailty.’’

— From “The Groundhog,’’ by Richard Eberhart (1904-2005), American poet and Dartmouth College professor. He spent most of his post World War II time in New Hampshire and on the Maine Coast.