Ode to a Squirrel

Good you can't hear
The stories & jibes inside
My sleepy head, as someone
Jokes about squirrel pie

From four decades ago
Somewhere in Louisiana or Big
Thicket. Tonight, on the roof
Here in Princeton, you work

Around the clock. Early
October, back & forth
With a stash of acorns.
You tapdance on the gutter screen,

Shimmy up to the highest pitch
& overhang below a crescent moon,
& then one of those great leaps
For the same tortured branch.

Copyright © 2003 Yusef Komunyakaa All rights reserved
from Painted Bride Quarterly: Print Annual I
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission