Squirrels And Being Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

tell me how to be in the world
I wish I had said to the auburn squirrel
playing in the trees out the library window
when it jumped too far from the next branch over
and was making me laugh when it scolded
all the way down
God, perhaps to the absolute ground
kerthump
because he missed it.

how could I laugh when sitting there
a week from exams, without a rude stare
reading Aquinas or Copleston's something else;
do squirrels have souls?
I've thought about it and I don't know
but that squirrel thought
it should have made a perfect landing.
and it wasn't its fault that it didn't.
does that have philosophy in it?

mary angela douglas 17 may 2023