New Meaning

Higgins

That wide stretch of hard blackhot, makes no sense to me,

Cut through the greensoft grassgrounds,

With quiet two-legs, noisy littlelegs, streamered spoke-rides Tossed handplays, barkyards, highflats, mainlimbs, treehomes.

It makes no sense, the blackhot,

Incomprehensible and hostile, it shimmers under noonsun.

It is the deading place of whiteline,

That runs from early bluelight to red-dim darkness.

The deading place.

Great powerful giants run there, roar there,

Rushflashing windscreamers,

Honking like the crack of doomgoose,

Veering careless, unconcerned,

From nearleapside to farleapside,

Screeching, sometimes in anger,

To stop, only too late.

Breathgrabbers, tailsnatchers and backbreakers,lifetakers.

The limbtrees, roof-runs and thinwires,

With their immaculate symmetry, clear aerialstraights,

Jagged branchcourses, and loftyholds,

Present no giant roaring clawfurs,

Offer perch to no metal fangmaws,

Hide no quick chrome nightmasks,

No barkfear… hissfright… silent jawtraps.

So free there, to run, to leap, I live out my squirreltime.

I will not be chased onto the blackhot empty waste,

Until I am, then I will.  Panicked, limb-lost, and frozen,

Held in the windscream, flashterror that stops my heart,

Turns my bowels to water.

I have seen failure to reach the farleapside.

Red and fur and gray

And red and still and flat,

On the flat blackhot deading place.

But that fearful spot, that whiteline blackhot,

Is a place only where it works for me.

Works my edge.  Works my lick.

Brings out my squirrelquick,

Unafraid to run the risk

To run, the risk of running,

No life, worth living,

is worth living less.

Fight or flee, react or die,

Under the roundblack rollfeet

Of that unknowable, nameless giant,

That stops too late or not at all.

So, I choose this morning,

To stand in the path of that shiny beast,

Bare my breast and face the enemy,

My fear.  My missing thought,

"What does come next?"

After the wheel. 

Wheel? The WHEEL!

For which I just found a name.

My feet burn on the blackhotssssssStreet! Yes!

The Street of blackhottttttTar!

I wait, ready to face the giant… Car! 

That is it!  It... is Car!

Tar - Street - Car grows large and larger.

I can stand here, with just these thoughts in my head,

And my squirrelness, less afraid than curious,

Dying to know. "What next?"

Now, screaming, windwhistling, roaring toward me,

Honking, veering and squealing it comes, the Car!

My back raised in anticipation of the moment,

My tail poised for a lifeleap if so chosen,

Head trembling, eyes dart and…

I am hit!  Slammed and lifted, blind, groundless,

Thrown high, clear to farleapside,

By the… Tire!  Yes, a Tire, but I fall,

I know as I land hard on soft, warm, dogless sod lawn,

Beyond fear, past mere squirrel, more than me,

Smelling warm grass and sunbaked shingle roof,

The home of people who set out millet, suet and,

Gray bent rainspout where,

That dog took a mouthful of my tail hairs,

One late summer evening when I was young, and hungry,

Careless, nestlost, and alone.

After a time I take to my feet and walk slowly back,

To the Dutch elm where I was born,

Spring buds intoxicating frangrance,

Reminding me of who birthed me,

Fed me, showed me run, leap, fight.

While a dog barking next yard, mad behind nuisance fence,

Sounds small and distant, incidental.

Its bark, no blaring horn blast,

Its fangs, no screeching tire,

It's claws, no gleaming bumper.

Just a dog on chain in yard where it belongs.

So I climb into my nest, safe within the warm roofsoffit,

Determined to make the best of my meeting with death.

As I lie back in the nook where I sleep, I doze,

I wonder what squirrel life is now…

Now that I straddled the dividing line and live.

Now as I find new words, new thoughts,

This new fearless meaning,

Now that I have seen the face of death,

And know the name of God:

Ford Explorer XLT.

Copyright ©1998

Martin Higgins

all rights reserved