There's something organic 

about the structure. On top 

we toss the downed 

birch branches, the twigs, 

the hollow stalks of 

daylilies, sometimes criss

and sometimes cross.

Inexorable as gravity, the heap 

of straight lines bends to nature's curve, 

the shape of a muskrat hut. We never

stop adding, but the mound never 

rises above six feet. Does each

ground floor subside into the earth,

making room for new attics? We don't know.

There's something organic

about the process. We toss branches

and leave it alone. The residents 

dig their doorways and their halls. We imagine

a cross-section, labeled with the name

of each one – woodchuck, chipmunk,

rabbit, squirrel. It ends up looking 

like a Beatrix Potter drawing. We don't pry.

We leave the materials; they do the building.

We ask them not to pillage from 

the shed. It's been fifteen years.

It seems to be working out.

 

Cheryl Caesar is an ex- expatriate, having lived in Europe for 25 years before returning to her native Michigan. She teaches writing at Michigan State University, and serves as president of the Michigan College English Association. Her chapbook of protest poetry Flatman is available from Amazon, and her poems and artwork appear in both volumes of Words across the Water (Fractal Edge Press). In 2024, she won first prize for prose in the My Secret Lansing contest sponsored by the Lansing Arts Council.