One morning recently, my cat brought in a dead mole–it had the softest fur I’d ever touched. And here is a poem (from Poetry Daily) in praise of the mole, so despised by gardeners.
Mole
Earth is his occupation, and the mole
works the turf in his native breaststroke, swimming
hallways into the sod—a geonaut
supreme, and connoisseur of worms; I’ve heard him
breaking roots an inch beneath my sole
and seen how the subterranean specialist
carves out for himself a single, simple role.
I envy the expertise he brings to bear
on dirt, the narrow office he was given;
as for me, my habitat is thought,
where I grope and sweat and scrabble out a living
forced to prove—up here in a windy lair
as invisible as the mole’s—that there exists
an animal who can dig a hole in air.
Deborah Warren
from CONNOISSEURS OF WORMS / Paul Dry Books