In the cold rain, a squirrel sits on an elm limb with its back to the trunk working on a walnut, its tail folded over its head like a hood.
gray squirrel
October 19, 2012
The brackens in my yard have turned from brown to burgundy. High in a walnut tree, a squirrel checks every webworm tent for unfallen nuts.
September 12, 2012
A squirrel creeps up to the flicker hole in the dead elm, but another squirrel pops out chittering and gives chase through the treetops.
September 3, 2012
A squirrel leaping between treetops miscalculates and falls 40 feet to the ground. It lies stunned for a minute, walnut still in its teeth.
August 26, 2012
A squirrel hangs by its hind feet to pick a pair of walnuts, drops one, climbs off with the other in its teeth. The day darkens into rain.
May 26, 2012
A slight breeze brings a shower of petals from the tulip tree, while a squirrel at the top of the black walnut makes it rain catkins.
May 17, 2012
Sun in the treetops. A squirrel hangs head-down from a walnut branch to eat the flowers. My lover combs the tangles from her long hair.
April 8, 2012
Red maple limbs laden with keys tremble from a pell-mell squirrel. I hear tapping on the storm door, open it and a bee flies out.
February 22, 2012
Dawn. Three deer become two, become three again. The sound of squirrel teeth on black walnut shell—that harsh madman’s whisper.
February 10, 2012
This snow makes it so much easier to keep track of squirrels, their mad chases on the ground, through the trees—showers of white dust.
January 26, 2012
Fog at daybreak, and a thin coat of sleet like coarse sand. From up in the woods, the sudden squealing of a squirrel fighting off a suitor.
December 2, 2011
Cold at sunrise. A squirrel gathers clumps of dry leaves from the last oak to still have them and stuffs them into the top of a hollow snag.
December 1, 2011
Chickadee and nuthatch alarms are ringing over something in the tall weeds. A squirrel pauses beside the porch to scratch its ear.
November 20, 2011
Warm and overcast, with the smell of rain. A sudden gust pulls a flying crow sideways. A squirrel digs pretend holes in the yard.