Red squirrels once lived in my forest.
Bushy-tailed, amber-furred creatures, they worked
hard all summer gathering and caching food for winter.
They scurried about cheeks full of acorns, hickory
nuts and walnuts, filling their coffer, repairing
their nest, defending their territory.
Red-green color-blinded, so a red rose would appear
yellow green to them, they speak the language of chirps.
One year after an especially harsh winter they disappeared.
Now only the tough hardy grey squirrels remain
and they too work hard all summer doing the same things.
Aesop’s fable of the ant and the grasshopper with its virtue
of hard work and planning for the future is not quite the same
as the moral of the squirrels whose lesson might simply be
the importance of meaningful work, as in my own longing
for consequential work, as in “The pitcher cries for water
to carry and a person for work that is real.”