- The sound of the squirrel
- in the dawning light
- singing slightly off-key
- was a patented memory
- in the wake of her mind.
- Somehow this reminding
- rhythm was of another
- place. One
- more familiar
- to the rhythms
- of so many mornings
- somewhere else, one
- of years of walking
- and dusks of owls
- and a life light
- years away
- where squirrels were
- chipmunks and rain
- was forever.
- Now, in the morning
- of a strange creek there were
- sounds that seemed
- to be someone’s memory
- in the trees.
- And the trees were like
- an army of eyes,
- and the rain was sleep,
- and the fire in the hearth
- was warm.
- The time-shortened shadows
- shrunk as the sun
- lifted the hills
- and the squirrels flashed
- tails in the trees
- as the brown leaves fell
- on the hillside.
- They covered the ground
- like hands in the dew
- and her hands were cold
- in the morning
- until she sat by the fire
- and wondered where
- the hearth she wanted was.
- There was dew all around
- the house just like
- there was everywhere
- else and the house
- was damp with the night air
- and the cat was like the squirrels,
- in the rafters, like the other cats
- in the other rafters, in her other life.
- The rafters went with the structure.
- And the trees went
- with the wind as they bent
- with the wind as they left
- out the mind of her silence
- as she wondered
- how long a rooted tree takes
- to form another opinion.