Squirrels

I’ve watched squirrels my whole life.  They

inhabit a zone just outside domesticity. Are

diplomatically wild.  They worry and stare,

behaviors of which I approve.  They horde

forgetfully, gorge daintily.  Sometimes

they just stop.  And fall asleep, mid-day,

on a limb or a fence post.  Squirrel

entropy. Sometimes frenzy

seizes them—something to do

with sex.  Or fleas? —Mad bursts of wants

a frozen pose arrests.  Squirrels

are not everything I had hoped wilderness

to be.  They are though everything

I would want squirrels to be, and

slightly more, for there’s always 

one more surprise set to leap

out of squirrel-evolution and seize

the nut, bury it, and pat fresh

soil over the nut-grave.  And run away!