A squirrel would have no idea how to operate a ziplock bag. A squirrel would just chew the bag open and eat as many nuts as it could, then leave the rest to go stale. A squirrel would not put the nuts in brownies or a fruit salad, either. Neither does any squirrel have a freezer full of pistachio ice cream. I have so many advantages over squirrels that it would be churlish of me to condemn the beasts for taking food that I can easily do without.
Also, it's very unlikely that I'll ever be eaten by a hawk or a coyote. Enjoy the walnuts, little rodents. But please try not to wake me too early in the day as you scamper across my rooftop on your way to or from your feast.
Sunday Verse
The Memory
by Gilbert Sorrentino
A smell of apricots the brings a place
to mind. To the eye. Words twist in the air
in tortured anagrams
shards fall into your life
that once had meaning
you think. You are arrested and your face
is brought to bear on all of it. This man
that man. A woman is in it somewhere
for the asking but the apricots overpower
you, the sentences clamor, voices,
voices.
The air shifts, you thought you were
in the street, you are in a room, what room
can it be, it seems familiar, it is full
of a distant smell, sweet and thin
and these anagrams
are falling into patterns, of course you
are in a room, this is a smell of apricots.
They bring a place
t mind. These voices are meaningless,
are tortured problems twisting in air.