The Treegap Governess has been on vacation. The hiatus has not been without poetic thoughts, contemplations or ideas about poetry. Rather the time away was a time to live poetry. George Eliot wrote in Middlemarch this lovely passage which perfectly captures how full and beautiful life is wherever you are as long as you attune your ears in appreciation:
If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silent.
One of my favorite things recently was watching the two Squirrel Girls eat hand-broken walnut pieces from the doorstep of my parent’s house. At one point when I went to feed the particularly fearless diner, I feared she was going to rush inside the house as I opened the door. These two are characters, one even puts her paws up on the glass door as if she was a pet asking for a fist bump. It’s entirely possible the squirrel thinks I’m insane as I take a few minutes to wonder when she’ll be back, whether or not she’ll pose for my pictures after scattering the walnuts (quickly because I really kind of want to feed her out of my hand but am scared to be bitten), and could sit all day long watching their backyard antics. I can’t help but be fully entertained in watching her jowls kick into overdrive as she carefully picks up a nut piece with two long fingered paws and proceeds to chew quickly, eyes focused straight ahead as she concentrates on her task at hand.
My parents get the credit for becoming the parents of these fun Squirrel Nutkins. It’s their back yard and I was merely a passerby, a willing feeder in an established relationship. But I loved every second of it and can’t help but think that when I came back from my long run that Sunday to find Squirrel Girl standing upright at the front of the house, she was saying welcome back, where have your paws tread and when will I see you again?
In honor of the Squirrel Girls and my parents who feed them, this Emily Dickenson poem presents a thoughtful summation of how I think about friendships.
Number 1073 (c.1865)
Experiment to me
Is every one I meet
If it contain a Kernel
The Figure of a Nut
Presents upon a Tree
Equally plausibly,
But Meat within, is requisite
To Squirrels, and to Me.
A new original poem, a Sestina, will debut on Friday.
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