Philip Kobylarz, Reflex, Photograph
Not Welcome
Spent too much time this morning
watching a squirrel negotiate
our feeder by the patio.
How desperate was he to get
more than we think he needs?
Good Mr. Nutkin, good American.
Go for it. Go for my suburban
lifestyle symbol, my Audubon
squirrel-proof bird feeder
equipped with my ingenious baffle
contrived to keep you distant,
where you belong, in some other,
less desirable, neighborhood
or part of town or country but
not in my back yard.
______________
Ron McFarland
Review by Jared Pearce
I like how this poem works to comment not just on rodents and not just on a presumed form of Americanism, but also the dilemma that opens before the speaker who can berate the squirrel for being selfish, for being in the wrong neighborhood, and who exemplifies the very traits he’s criticizing in our rodent pal. That tongue-in-cheekness is probably at the core of what it is to be human or rodent or alive at all.