Squirrel Fever

A poem is the first thing I remember writing that wasn't a class assignment. I think I was in high school, and I have no idea where the impulse came from. I was a budding environmentalist at the time, tuned in to those who decried human encroachment on natural habitat - the Joni Mitchell "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot" era. 

I lived in a small city, and there was a telephone pole at the corner of our yard and our neighbor's yard. We had squirrels that raced up and down that pole and jumped from branch to branch of adjacent trees. The poem I wrote featured those squirrels, and I don't remember anything of the poem other than my metaphor for the squirrels as "rag-tag refugees from the wire-bound trees." The gist of my poem was that the squirrels were here first, and we are the interlopers, so we have no right to complain if they sometimes gnaw the telephone lines.

I showed the poem to my mother, which was an uncharacteristic move. I was typically shy about revealing my inner thoughts and feelings. I had an older brother, who, in the tradition of older brothers everywhere, looked for any exposed part of me to make fun of. Plus, my parents were loving but supremely practical in their approach to life, with no time for "tom-foolery."

True to form, my mother read the poem and scoffed at my compassion for squirrels. She did daily battle with what she called "the rodents," even to the point of keeping a pellet gun next to the dining room window she could use to scare them from her beloved bird feeder. She had no patience with the beasts or any sentiment in their favor. I retreated, feeling embarrassed and exposed. I may have written a poem or two after that, but I had learned not to share them with anyone. Before long, I turned to more practical things.