Red Squirrel by Chris Crittenden

sputter and chip,
rebuke me with variants
of raucous croon,

you perky piccolo of fuss,
high on a spruce,
helming azure.

if i could shimmy, bristle,
and cackle like you,
besotted by the spirit of

Puck,

would i, too, dash
from my own moods,
a child lost to daredevilry--

and forget the madness
of the mean world
through the quicksilver roan

of my flips?


Chris Crittenden, Maine, USA