{"id":2593,"date":"2026-06-08T00:17:46","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T00:17:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/?p=2593"},"modified":"2026-06-08T00:19:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T00:19:24","slug":"my-groundhog-a-prose-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/?p=2593","title":{"rendered":"My Groundhog: A Prose Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"2593\" class=\"elementor elementor-2593\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<section class=\"elementor-section elementor-top-section elementor-element elementor-element-82504d2 elementor-section-boxed elementor-section-height-default elementor-section-height-default\" data-id=\"82504d2\" data-element_type=\"section\" data-e-type=\"section\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-container elementor-column-gap-default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-column elementor-col-100 elementor-top-column elementor-element elementor-element-855f1c0\" data-id=\"855f1c0\" data-element_type=\"column\" data-e-type=\"column\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-wrap elementor-element-populated\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-ecce2e1 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"ecce2e1\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>I didn\u2019t know what it meant the first time I saw you, standing in the triangular median by the stoplight that I would grow to know as the signal for \u201calmost home,\u201d one of the last stops before I reached my temporary home of three and a half years.\u00a0<\/p><p>I remember you seemed frantic, nose in the air, a tiny being amidst the traffic and signal lights and whooshing wind. I was frantic at the time, too, though I had the benefit of a numbing agent and the general, arrogant ease inherent of an apex predator. But we were both without a home just then, both tiny beings in a world we didn\u2019t understand, out of place.<\/p><p>And then you dove back into your temporary burrow and I moved into mine, and perhaps we were less frantic for a time.<\/p><p>It took seeing you a second time for it to click, following my dad\u2019s trailer with the sunshine bumper sticker. You were hurrying away from a random NC highway, and again my mom was beside me, helping me into another temporary home.\u00a0<\/p><p>Had you just crossed that big, scary expanse of a highway? I too had just made a crossing, heart pounding as I weighed the diverging path before me, as I decided on my personal shift in seasons, my emerging new beginning.\u00a0<\/p><p>A couple days before I saw you again, as the automated voice said, \u201cWelcome to North Carolina\u201d as I crossed the line, I registered a feeling I couldn\u2019t decipher. Was it regret or a feeling of coming home? I don\u2019t know, but I\u2019ll introspect while I\u2019m less frantic here.\u00a0<\/p><p>The whole of America looks to you to see if the arrival of spring is near or if the season of dead things will linger. Little do they know you are my own personal harbinger. Now I will look out for you next time I make a move, and if we cease to move together, I hope that only means we have found our permanent home, and that we are both a little less frantic there.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn\u2019t know what it meant the first time I saw you, standing in the triangular median by the stoplight that I would grow to know as the signal for \u201calmost home,\u201d one of the last stops before I reached my temporary home of three and a half years.\u00a0 I remember you seemed frantic, nose [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-snippets","category-writingtips"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2593"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2597,"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2593\/revisions\/2597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fulloflit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}