Thawing Out With Our Fluffy Tailed Friends

Today we celebrate squirrels, those everyday creatures with the fluffy tails and I have always found so entertaining. I love the way they used to nibble on pine cones propped up on their hind legs using their delicate fingers to turn the cones around and their keen ability to sniff out potential predators from neighbor cats to raccoons or even our very quick little Yorkie Bobby growing up.

When I moved to DC I couldn’t believe the varieties of colors of squirrels, yes, this sounds like a terribly naïve or contrived assessment about the diversity of creatures in DC, but it’s not meant to sound like that. I had gone to high school with people of more colors than squirrels I’d ever seen since arriving here. And I find them all very beautiful.

The other thing I love about city squirrels is their brash, in-your-face scramble for food. They have no fear of people walking by—when their eyes are on the prize, they go for it and we look on, happy for them. One day while waiting for a bus, I truly believe the scrambling pair of squirrels playing up and down the nearby tree would have no problem pushing my shoe off of the side of a discarded wrapper of some sort just so they could get a lick of whatever was on it.

Beloved and fat, fed by tourists and locals alike, today’s poem does justice to these backyard and city critters that I love to watch and have had sympathy for during the blizzard. If you think the lingering feet of snow and ensuing melt was tough for us humans, think about our furry friends who have had a deeper dig-out for sustenance than most of us.

For Squirrel Nutkin
by Nicole Speulda

Upon the porch Squirrel Girl did put
First one front paw and then a back foot,
Scampering up to the black mat
Where she nibbled and piled her cheeks fat
With nuts my mother held out just for her.

The courtship began long ago,
The then pregnant squirrel prancing to and fro,
Capturing the eye and food of my mother
Nurturing by nature, caring of others
They developed a trust, hand to fur.

This backyard jungle is fraught with peril,
Squirrels and birds watchful of cats domestic and feral
Outwitting each other for seed, nuts and berries,
For my mother’s hand each crafty creature tarries,
In a backyard that reminds me of Beatrix Potter.

The day of the standoff squirrel was caught in greed,
Hanging upside-down from in a raid on bird seed,
Her ears straightly perked, fine hairs filtering
scent and movement like miniature satellites positioning
the fat cat beneath, the birds circling her.

Then off with a swing and the help of human noise,
Squirrel Girl lived another day but would learn poise
In her gathering and beware the cats and the birds,
To wait for the kind hand outstretched to her,
And has since developed a gourmet pallet, as it were--
unsalted giant walnuts please kind madam, kind sir.