chasing squirrels.

 this poem was precipitated by the realization that i’ve spent the entire pandemic chasing squirrels off my bird-feeders. that’s fundamentally what i’ve been doing for the past year. so while i would obviously not consider myself an essential worker, i actually might well be considered as such by certain local sparrows, blue-jays and perhaps a wood-pecker or two. and i find that a fascinating thought to consider.

consider then if all that’s assumed so clever,

must ever be or are we simply chasing squirrels, 

might life’s more confounding questions be buried forever,

while some ancient truth so slowly unfurls, 

like some foreign flag as red as early morning eyes,

takes us for fools seeking validation that’s as annoying,

as lovers’ stubborn hold upon scrabbling lies,

an illusory fact denying the inevitability of deploying,

somewhere directly overseas to furthest afield, 

sealed or still buried in this land of magical thinking,

the inevitability that a sudden evacuation frees,

up a portion of ourselves that’s hereto-for been sinking, 

into our heads slowly but surely to put us on our knees,

a loquacious ludicrous and lucid dream of a better place, 

which may as well be admitting our knowings’ gone south,

at least putting our best foot forward inevitably to face,

facts how they’ve been unquestionably fine in our mouths,

so long as comfortable constructs of ideas we’ve tread,

led to a default setting the exhumation of remains,

again and yet again discarding rumours quietly spread, 

like the pitter patter of litter feet hushed up refrains,

of crazed and wretched rodents running off ahead,

to join a collective us that alone we together have never,

known or perhaps it’s ok not to know whilst life unfurls,

a warning whether wise to consider us clever,

or simply we be chasing squirrels.