Poem, September 2012

So. I haven't put up those pictures of Petra. It seems such a hard task, so I have simply not done it.

What I'll put here is what I think may be the completed version of the poem I started some weeks ago and posted in The Widow's Chronicle. But it's risky to think I have finished it. There's always another day, another way of seeing it.

What I See

That squirrel
plays around my neighbor's lopsided maple tree,
jumps up on the trunk and runs down,
turns flips, stops to flick his tail,
then repeats the whole dance.
It is like a dance,
wild and joyful.

What I see is his singleness.
Day after day he runs to that tree,
always alone.
And I try to draw some lesson,
as I often do.

I have seen squirrels
perform those acrobatic flips
in my own yard, but always by twos.
They chase between
the ash and the dawn redwood,
stopping now and then
to hold a pose for one another,
dash up the trees and down again
or take their noisy chase
across my roof.

Funny how the birds hold their peace
while the squirrels play.
The blackbirds and sparrows stay still
and out of sight,
even the mourning doves,
who every day whine out their grief.
(What are they mourning? I wonder.)
Perhaps the birds watch
from the nearby sycamore or honey locust,
drawing their own lessons.

The trees I know,
what they will do and when,
like the sycamore--it will hold its leaves
until late, late autumn
while the ash turns wine red
with the first frost--
or the dawn redwood
which, in spite of its name,
is not an evergreen.
And I know the birds--
robins, quail, magpies, even flickers
peck their way around my lawns;
sparrows and finches have long used
corners of my house for nest building,
with my blessing.

I don't much like squirrels,
but here they are,
so, yes, I watch them,
note their wildness with some small envy
and, after twenty years,
thought I knew them.
But this one squirrel
acting out his happy dance alone--
I do not know what it means
for him, for me,
perhaps nothing at all.
But it seems not quite right,
and I cannot believe
that squirrel
is not longing for something,
someone.


As I write it here, I see a few spots I'll likely have to come back to, tinker with. But I'll leave it for now.

It's now Saturday, and I have tinkered, and how.