Under the grass, way down deep in the ground
Digging deeper and deeper, a mole could be found
He would claw excavations, in anticipation
Of tender grass, root-salad, eating sensations

Day after day he would tunnel and scratch
As he searched for a succulent, back yard, grass patch
When he found one, he’d gather his family to eat
And they’d all dine upon, the mole’s freshly found feast

Up above in the light, hard at work in his yard
An old man in his garden, was working quite hard
His children were grown, and his wife has long passed
And his friends can’t recall, when the man smiled last

He watered petunias and planted new posies
And he trimmed and he clipped, to make everything rosy
He walked to a planter, for carrots and chard
All at once his boot sank, right down into the yard

“It must be a mole!” said the man with a frown
So he stomped and he mushed, his boots down in the ground
“It’s no match for me! It is only a varmint!’
“But first I must find it, so then I can harm it!”

The mole and his wife, with their kids by their side
Ran around to and fro, seeking some place to hide
The tunnel collapsed and the world seemed to rumble
The poor little moles, blindly bounced as they tumbled

The man devised traps, and used pitch-forks and water
It was just a blind mole, not a fox or an otter
He thought and he planned, and he plotted and pondered
A way to do in, the small mole as he wandered

“Aha!” the man said, “I have finally got it!”
“A devious plan that I’ll hatch when I plot it.”
“I’ll bury a bucket in line with his hole,
and await the undoing of this small, blind mole!”

The man got a pail, and he dug a big hole
And he left it to capture, his problem the mole
He took off his boots, and he laid in his bed
And he dreamed of a yard, free of moles in his head

The next day he awoke, and he put on his clothes
And he found the four the moles, so he got out his hose
But before he began, to begin, his cruel drowning
He stopped and he looked, and the man stopped his frowning

The mole was a father, the mole had a wife,
He thought to himself, “Why should I take his life.”
“He has what I’ve lost, and he’s loved and he’s needed.”
“We can all share my yard; it’s so big.” He conceded.

Happily evermore, always from then
The man and the moles, live together as friends
The man planted grass, for the moles in a zone
And the moles left his garden, and backyard alone

The old man grew plants, with the knowledge he knew
But that day it was something, quite different he grew
As he finally smiled, and he watched the moles play
That old man had grown kinder and wiser that day

Jeff Burkhart’s “Rhyme and Reason”

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