Watching Squirrels

If you pretend the mere squirrels are more exotic, like monkeys, and that you've always wanted monkeys in your backyard, then the edge of the lawn becomes a lush jungle playground and you see the magic of where you live.

Those squirrels might be fighting, or loving, but they are scrambling and leaping in any case, and making noises they usually only make when they think no one is around to listen in. i put down my coffee cup and my book long enough to watch them ascend and descent (and transcend?) the tree trunks, their long bodies and tails flowing the curves of the wood, like Maserati on a stock-still interstate-- a flash of sleek speed. But no, forget the car metaphor, because they've already driven away to someone else's jungle.

Apart

I sit apart.

In many ways

I find I do not fit

in the puzzle of

humanity.

I observe from a

different place

and empathize,

comprehend,

but do not identify.

I hold myself

when no one else

will hold me.

It is enough.

But the magnet of love

pulls, pulls, pulls,

and sometimes hurts.