---
title: The squirrel
genre: verse

id: squirrel
toc: "The squirrel"

project:
    title: Elegies for alternate selves
    class: elegies
    order: 23
    prev:
    - title: Spittle
      link: spittle
    next:
    - title: Swan song
      link: swansong
...

| He is so full in himself:
| how far down the branch to run,
| how long to jump, when to grab the air
| and catch in it and turn, and land on branch
| so gracefully it's like dying, alone
| and warm in a bed next to a summer window
| and the [birds singing][].  And on that branch there
| is the squirrel dancing among the branches
| and you think *What if he fell?* but he won't
| because he's a squirrel and that's what
| they do, [dance][] and never fall.  It was erased
| long ago from the squirrel, even
| the possibility of falling was erased
| from his being by the slow inexorable evolution
| of squirrels, that is why all squirrels
| are so full in themselves, full in who they are.

[birds singing]: mountain.html
[dance]: movingsideways.html