MARMOT TEXT

 

Today was a travel day and as we rode another ferry across the Puget Sound 

anticipating what adventure would come next

my reverie was interrupted when on my phone…I received a text.

The text is one I think I shall forever keep upon my fridge.

It was from the woodchuck Deborah and I met in Olympic Park

while up on Hurricane Ridge.

She let me know she finds the word woodchuck offensive 

how anger in her it spurs…

and in any future poems about her…she texted…it’s marmot she prefers.

I texted her right back apologizing for using woodchuck as her name

Informing her I have always thought they were both the same.

She agreed but said she, as a marmot, has her pride…

and she feels using marmot instead of woodchuck is much more dignified.

When I asked her why she said with the name marmot…she feels more at home

because she connects the name woodchuck with that old god-awful poem.

You know the poem she said…the one that makes fun of my livelihood…

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck…if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

And then that angry little marmot in her text when on to say 

No one ever asks how much wood could a marmot chuck…and I prefer it that way.

Again, I apologized for my faux pas, told her I’d write a retraction and then 

I let her know that I will never make that same mistake again.

When we were finished I admit for a moment I found this all perplexing

to think that for the last few minutes…with a marmot I was texting.

I assumed that if I asked the marmot how she could text so good…

She would smile and tell me how a woodchuck could not text

but how a marmot could.