SQUIRRELS

Welcome to another Poetry Friday! We are hosted today by Linda at TeacherDance. Make sure to stop and see what poetic intrigue she is up to.

This has been another horrible week in the national news and I fear for my Asian friends and family members. How can they not feel threatened by the racial violence that is taking place, it seem, all over the country? Meanwhile the pandemic will continue for a while. I’m sure, like me, many turn to nature for some solace.

This week while walking down a street I began to notice the squirrels’ nests in the highest branches of trees. They are uncovered in the winter because leaves have fallen. They inspired a poem that I will share, but first, I discovered this poem by Amos Russel Wells who was born in Glen’s Falls, N.Y., during the Civil War. I thought his poem was charming. 

To A City-Park Squirrel
by Amos Russel Wells

 
Dear little exile from woodlands dear,
How can you keep your wilderness grace,
How can you bound so merrily here,
Shut in this narrow and formal place?

Still your fancies are forest-free,
Still as gallant you swing and glide
From dusty tree to skeleton tree
As once you roamed through the woodlands wide.

Surely you must, on a witching night,
Flee from the prisoning haunts of men,
Over the housetops take your flight,
And bathe yourself in the woods again!

It’s easy to imagine this squirrel taking flight! (Actually, I wouldn’t mind fleeing into a city, like New York, to satisfy my pandemic travel fever.) Anyway, the poem resonated with me because as I looked at the squirrels’ nests this week on my street, I began to imagine they lived in high rises. This isn’t the first time these furry and common creatures have showed up in my writing. 

SQUIRREL HIGH RISE
 

 Two round cozy nests 
 of twigs and leaves 
 in the highest branches
 of a tall tall tree,
 hovering over
 the hills and town—
 like fancy 
 penthouse apartments.
 

 There is not one window,
 none at all,
 or an elevator
 in the hall. 
 

 And squirrels don’t pay
 even the smallest fee
 for a cozy apartment
 in a high rise tree.
 
© Janice Scully 2021

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone, and enjoy the early spring. Thank you again, Linda, for hosting.

15 thoughts on “SQUIRRELS”

  1. It was another hard week of news, news of terrible acts that do not have be with all of us working hard together to make change, to stop the fear and violence that causes it.
    And, as for your special poems, a few I know who do not like it, but I feed my city squirrels peanuts when it’s wintry cold & snowy. I love watching them, Janice, & now you have two poems about them! I love that “find” by Wells, especially “And bathe yourself in the woods again!” And yours is so, so clever in its rhythm & rhyming. I’ll never see another high nest again without thinking of those cheap & free high-rise apartments for squirrels! Thank you!

  2. The news of the week (week after week it seems) is so disheartening and scary. Another concrete example of how words matter…But so is poetry. Poetry matters.
    Thanks for the introduction to Russel Wells’ poem, but I especially love your take on the squirrels’ posh accommodations, Janice! Can’t beat the view from their “a high rise tree”. 🙂

  3. Good Morning, Janice. What a treat to read about squirrels in high rises — rent-free, no less! Ha!

    I too have been reacting to the news. Three of my children are Asian and have dealt with microaggressions their whole lives. But the news this week shook me. I can’t protect my children in the way I want to. I spoke about events with my eldest who see this week’s shootings as part of a greater issue that relates to BLM and hate for anyone. It was good to talk with her. I wish the work of change were easier and faster.

  4. Life is filled with angst these days, Janice. Thanks for sifting our thoughts to nature where healing can be found. Your original poem is a delightful one. I love to watch the antics of the squirrels. Now that I am permanently in Virginia, I look forward to seeing what nature has to offer here in those high rise trees.

  5. Enjoyed Wells’s poem, but yours is more charming. 🙂 I always marvel at squirrels’ nests – so high up in the trees, and they’re able to zoom right up to them on vertical tree trunks without falling. Acrobats in high rises. They are definitely fun to watch — once they held a squirrel convention in our back yard — saw about 30 squirrels gathering! Thanks for the solace during another hard news week.

  6. Charming is right, Janice – Mr. Wells’s poem AND yours. Love the imagery throughout yours! I do love our squirrels around here, and converse with them through the kitchen window, but I do wish they’d quit taking their acorn snacks under the hood of my car and chewing my wires… Ugh. (Various deterrents work kinds-sorta-sometimes, but not all the time.) Thanks for sharing a nature break here, in the midst of all the human-caused turmoil & heartbreak in the news.

  7. I love the city squirrels in both poems! We don’t have squirrels here in Haiti, but we do have rats. I try to pretend the rats are squirrels because it helps me be less horrified by them. I tell myself that if they were furry with big squirrel tails, I would think they were cute!

  8. The squirrel nest in my backyard was raided by crows, and parts of it were scattered all over the snow back when we had it. I am sometimes at odds with the squirrels, but even so, it was disheartening to see the remains of their nest all scattered about. I much prefer your image of squirrels in high rises! Thanks for that lovely thought… Best to you.

  9. Thanks for this joyful break with apartment dwelling squirrels, both you and Wells create such lovely bits of fancy in your poems. In his, “Over the housetops take your flight,
    And bathe yourself in the woods again!” And your, “a cozy apartment
    in a high rise tree.” And as Linda B mentioned lovely rhythm and rhyme that dances down your poem. Wishing that your Asian friends and family are all well and safe, and that our country will make changes in these horrendous acts.

  12. Squirrels–so commonplace, charming and AVAILABLE. I love this:
    There is not one window,
    none at all,
    or an elevator
    in the hall.
    I hope all of us distressed by antiAsian violence find some way to solace via action.

  13. That squirrel high rise in the tree is delightful-and rent free, to boot! Thank you for a respite from the news. My heart aches for my Asian American brothers and sisters, and all those who are facing violence and threats and discrimination.

  14. Janice, this has been a hard week, and the poetry you are sharing in this post is a welcome respite from it. Squirrels have inspired a verse or two from me as well, I believe, and I wonder if it’s not because of their ubiquity. I’ve seen them in my front yard, and I expect to see them on the trails I’ll hike this afternoon. I love the glimpse you’ve given us, and the words “cozy apartment” will undoubtedly come to my mind the next time I see that clump of leaves high in the trees.

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