Squirrels

A cat has taken up residence in our garden.
They didn’t ask, they simply chose their spot
and stayed without a please or by your leave.
Each day they laid there as still as the ground below,
until yesterday, when they saw a squirrel.
Transformed, they moved by quantum mechanics from here
to there seemingly in one instantaneous
blurry blip, Schrödinger’s cat on ‘speed’.
Luckily, for every action there’s an equal and opposite
reaction, and Newton squirreled the squirrel away.

I think we’ve been adopted. I don’t know if it’s a stray or domestic cat that’s simply taken a liking to our garden, but it’s certainly staked it’s claim.
(20.09.24)

© Ben Quant 2024
Photo by Jaël Vallée on Unsplash

Out of the corner of my eye
I see him scurry across the fence;
a bully who has artfully eased
his predecessors off the patch.

His movement’s confident and cocky,
the urban swagger of one who knows
he’s reached the top of his ‘profession’.
He is the top cat, guvnor, kingpin.

Over his shoulder hangs no weapon
but a bushy tail, his bling,
or status symbol signifying
that he is not too be messed with.

One moment he’s there and then he’s not.
I turn to look but he has vanished,
disarmingly slipped out of my sight.
I scan my surroundings nervously.

It’s not just him that’s disappeared,
it is his stash, ill-gotten gains,
the product of extortion, never
to be seen again till next year.

Somewhere he’s counting out his nuts
stacking then in their ordered piles,
a display intended to underline
that he’s in charge and no one else.

I was sitting this evening wondering what to write about today when I spotted our neighborhood squirrel on the fence…
(02.09.24)

Ode for the Day

An experiment in poetic doodling

Poem 298 – Newton’s Squirrel

Poem 280 – The Guvnor