Dave Bonta takes the familiar Groundhog Day joke and turns it around. His groundhog isn't checking for a shadow to predict the weather. He's watching for the shadows of hawks, because he has come out for something more basic: to look over other animals' burrows and find a mate. Even that urge is quiet, described as a faint mutter, like an underground stream or a rumbling stomach. He follows it "more in faith than in urgency," like a reluctant prophet who has been called to a job he didn't ask for.
The mood is tense and exposed. The meadow has lost its grass and cover, snow has changed the ground, and the sun gives no heat. The animal feels out of place in a landscape he can't read. The poem ends with him frozen and wary as the sun slips out from behind a snowcloud, caught between instinct and fear.