Squirrel Talk Lost in the Black Forest night lightning, the only light of rain caught in a hungry cold disorientation hours wandered around the circling drain Underneath a cozy dweller bushy-tailed feels no chill just the thrilled dream of tomorrow's fallen easter acorn hunt If I could just recalibrate my inner dialogue to hear the faster twitter of the skittering attention's pause Shrink my lungs to a faster heartbeat my fingers sharpening to grasp the tessellations of oaken bark My inner almond orientation traded for the most spherical of peas scurrying up the down of bent trees Smell the forest orchestra crescend and hear each woodwind limb and piccolo beetle reed buzz blend The country map is but a constellation of unshelled monuments captured in an abacus of amygdalal acquisitions within the musky cairns that mark the prideland where the sweet flower roams waiting for an exchange of chirps for growls sifted for invitations to the chase, the prance, the agile romance of bouncing limbs and ruffled leaves of otherwise unbothered trees leaping across the open hawk spaces to chase fallen treasure into bitty burrowed caches or steal an unattended nutmeat, hoarding nature's bounty into winter's sufficiency To speak like such a dweller such an uncanny smeller scragly feller would pierce the velvet darkness a mind opened to a thousand points of light so easily triangulates the yellow brick road spiraling to escape and curl back up for a slumber tired dreamscape of caramel star umber unbothered by wolfpack mentalities or the need for endlessly fresh meat safe in the arms of aspen pines where sapsuckers nest and mountain moon shines