Squirrels and Us

It's in the nature of a squirrel
To stutter-sprint across open ground
Leap and pause, double-back
Start and stop and start again
Quick as you blink

A hawk will snatch a squirrel
Who hews to a true trajectory

But on city streets
There's no hawk to fool
Just the onrushing oblivion
of tires on pavement.

Still, a squirrel has its nature
Memories burned into the blood and bone
of generations
And it gives up these habits hard

How often do we hesitate,
Reverse course or stop short
Because we imagine the shadow
of a hawk overhead
Flying out of our past
Thinking we are dodging phantom dangers
When we are only fooling
Ourselves

Squirrel Baby Funeral

Last week while we were walking the dog, my daughter found a very tiny, hairless, dead baby squirrel lying beneath a tree. It's eyes were not fully open yet, like a baby mouse.

She wanted to take it home and I thought that was rather gross, given that her first thought was to perhaps dissect it. But she cleverly asked her mom and got permission before the two of us could talk it over. She scooped up the squirrel with a shovel, put it in a shoebox, and brought it home.

Quickly her empathetic side emerged and she decided to have a funeral for the baby squirrel. First she built it a coffin (which was for display--the coffin was not actually buried with the squirrel).


Then she made a headstone for the squirrel:
This is the shot of the squirrel's final resting place in our backyard: