Three Animal Poems

The New Squirrels

Did you notice
How the squirrels have changed?
The new squirrels are not happy
They are small and black and fearsome

The old squirrels were friendly and brown
But the new squirrels have circled
The brown ones away

Their beady black little eyes
Sparkle with orneriness and ill will

And they preach at me from their elevated pulpits
Scolding me with public pomp and posture
So fiery is their moral rhetoric
I cover my head in shame

Absurd little conservatives!
Casting down acorns of scorn upon me
Tails shaking with furious indignation


Raccoons

A trap for a raccoon can be fashioned
From a small hollow log
Five penny nails and a dime

The nails should be driven inward at angles
Their points make a small circle
With the shiny dime beneath

A raccoon’s paw slips between the nails
It grasps the shiny object but
Pointed nails prevent it from removing its fist

And how like a man is this funny animal?
Excruciating tactile curiosity!
It knows it will be caught
And yet it must possess what it has touched

You should see it when the trapper comes
Hopping around the hollow log
With its tiny fist pinned inside

What must enter its little mind
As the trapper approaches?


The Pigeon

The maimed pigeon
unable to achieve flight
circumnavigated me on the dirty sidewalk

It’s left wing broken
it could not but flap its right wing
and so it scooted around me in a circle
its beak scraping the cement

I seemed to be the focus of its rotation
standing alone with my feet together
as it disappeared on my left
and reappeared on my right hand

I must admit I pitied the hapless creature
hesitatingly, I lifted the heel of my right shoe
intending to crush its skull
and end its pain

Just then it looked up at me
with its calcium eye into my face
and shouted coarsely at me
in unmistakable German

“Ach!” it said

Unfortunately I do not speak German
but the glint in its eye
communicated not fear but rage

I understood only that it did not pity itself
and also that its pain was not considerable to me

I did not pity the bird
but my own discomfort at the sight of it

Moments later the bus arrived