A rippling, bobbing wood-elf, the chipmunk came
Under the Cape Cod conifers, over roots,
A first scout of the continent’s wild game,
Midget aboriginal American. Flowing
On electrical accurate feet
Through its circuitry. That was the first real native –
Dodging from flashlit listening still
To staring flashlit still. It studied me
Sitting at a book – a strange prisoner,
Pacing my priceless years away, eyes lowered,
To and fro, to and fro,
Across my page. It snapped a tail-gesture at me –
Roused me, peremptory, to this friendship
It would be sharing with me
Only a few more seconds.
Its eyes
Popping with inky joy,
Globed me in a new vision, woke me,
And I recognized it.
You stayed
Alien to me as a window model,
American, airport-hopping superproduct,
Through all our intimate weeks up to the moment,
In a flash-still, retorting to my something,
You made a chipmunk face. I thought
An eight-year-old child was suddenly a chipmunk.
Pursed mouth, puffed cheeks. And suddenly,
Just in that flash – as I laughed
And got my snapshot for life,
And shouted: That’s my first ever real chipmunk!’ –
A ghost, dim, a woodland spirit, swore me
To take his orphan.