On a Wet and Dreary Day

To a Squirrel

Hey little buster why do you sit

All furry and wet munching a nut on a rock?

Why aren’t you home where it’s safe and it’s warm

And there isn’t a storm, oh, so black?

It must be the meat of that nut that you chew

Which[that] keeps you so steadfastly there.

For it’s such a fine treat, that nut that you chew

It must be quite lusciously rare.

Or maybe it’s that you cannot go back

And be with your family just yet;

For here you can set and try to forget

The cares of that nest that is yours.

Or maybe you spy from the edge of your eye

Someone you’d like to see.

It may be a dog; it can’t be a frog —

But maybe, just maybe, it’s me!

[I wrote this in 1981, when I was at college. I saw a squirrel sitting on a huge rock. It was rainy and I was tired after class, and the poem mostly just came to me. (Speaking of Serendipity.) I’ve never tried to get it published, but maybe I should.]

Copyright–Barb Orbison Hansen