Sometimes words don’t matter. You can say whatever you want — it goes in one ear and out the other, no matter who you talk to, no matter the topic. Lecture notwithstanding, the words just flutter out into nothingness.
Chipmunks are just little striped daredevils. Thrill seekers. Risk junkies. What’s a chipmunk? Check this link if you are not already familiar with at least one of the 24 species that live in North America.
I’ve had more opportunity to notice the chipmunks the live in our neighborhood lately. They’ve been pretty active and the more I watch, the more I think they are crazy little critters. What kind of animal runs across the lawn, in broad daylight, then stops by a driveway and chitters at the sky as if the clouds might answer. And all while knowing there are a couple of hawks that like to hunt in the area?
Lecture the Wind
As if we hadn’t had enough rain, it kept on
drizzle to buckets to steady drown-pour.
The French drains shuttle runoff to swales
heavy with overgrown grass, a strip of lush
meadow in the making. Teen chipmunks
dive the rapids, dare-devil down the swale,
surfing turbulence from decorative rocks
to lower garden, invincible as any teens,
and just as oblivious to danger, water
rushing hard enough to scour the stripes
from their fur. Wouldn’t it be wrong to let
them continue, their mini-whitewater-contest
something so obviously bad for their health?
And wrong, too, to stop them?
Who else would test themselves like this? Who else would strive to achieve
what’s not just dangerous but, let’s face it,
not normally feasible for their species?
Let them be, the matron chipmunks mutter.
You can’t tell them anything.
Might as well talk to the moon or mankind.
Might as well lecture the wind.
Looking for more poems?
You’ll find more of my poems on this blog or in the collection Stars Crawl Out From Their Caves, which is available in both ebook and print.
Missed a poem? Links to prior poems can be found on this page.