A Squirrel in Repose

 

Some Sundays, I have no plan for what to write a blog about. I pick up my camera and go outside, and I always find something interesting. Today was such a day. But I was not even all the way out when I spotted this squirrel on my back porch. I took its picture through the back door. The squirrel is stretched out, flattened, and sitting absolutely still. That's attention-getting, if only in contrast to the normal hurried movements of its kind. Is it resting? Sunbathing? 

 

 

It barely moved for the long minutes I watched. I wondered what might be going through its mind. In that, I am in good company. 

    Henry David Thoreau wrote in his journal: “I saw a squirrel this morning, sitting motionless on a limb, as if meditating.” 

    John Muir’s nature writings capture a similar moment: “Even the squirrel, with his busy ways, pauses to listen to the wind in the pines.” 

    The poet James Wright guessed at a squirrel's inner life:“Curled in the crook of a branch, He dreams of acorns, wind, and chance.”

     As did Gene Stratton-Porter, writing in Moths of the Limberlost: “The squirrel, nestled on a rail, is not asleep but dreaming—of leaves, of wind, of time.” 

 

As Gary Snyder once said: “Observing a squirrel can take your mind away from worries and into the wonder of nature.” It's absolutely true. Looking closer, I see that the squirrel is holding an acorn in its mouth. Maybe it is just taking a rest on its way home for lunch?