A Deep River Year - 2017

The old folk tale was that babies came from heaven. I remember childhood pictures of a Delivery Stork carrying a little baby in a soft cloth bundle hanging from its beak, off to a waiting home. The truth about where babies came from didn't reveal itself to me until my mother began to become enlarged with my little sister.

But once in a while the old stories prove to be true. This Sunday afternoon the rain had finally passed, and my wife Phyllis strolled out into the yard to breathe the sweet September air. She heard sharp squeals from the nearby maple treetop. As a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, she recognize the frantic cry of a baby squirrel. Having noticed the remains of an adult squirrel in the street in front of the house that morning, the victim of a passing car, it seemed possible that the dead mother had left unattended babies in her nest. And sure enough, almost on cue, a tiny gray bundle fell from the high branches and landed at Phyllis' feet. Of course she instantly scooped it up and cuddled it against her chest, examining it for injuries and offering it a dropper full of water to make sure it wasn't dehydrated.

Some day this little squirrel will open its eyes to a wonderful world of green and glorious freedom. It will be one of the pesky nuisances raiding somebody's bird feeder or chewing its way into a forbidden attic. To most people, it will be just another rodent with a big tail, one of the many inhabitants of this world that don't seem to have much usefulness to us, the human superintendents of the planet. But the opposite is true. We are richer for every creature who makes this remarkable planet its home. Squirrels, too, are priceless partners in creation. They help plant forests, and they provide food for many furred and winged predators in the ongoing natural drama of life and death. And they exhibit a pure joy in life, signaled in the flick of their tail and their tightrope act they perform high in the sky above us. They call us to see the magic in even the smallest and most ordinary of things. And, perhaps, too, they know something of love. At least this one does.

Squirrel

A little gray bundle
falls from the sky,
a tiny life.
Its eyes tightly closed
and its stomach hungry,
it cries for food,
its mother's milk,
and the warmth of her body
to be warmth and safety
against the wind and night.
But in this rainy world,
she does not come,
and the small one drops
to the hard earth,
where some great mercy
waits.
Cradled in human hands,
it knows no fear,
trusts in the tenderness
which has no name
that a helpless foundling understands,
but which is love.
And someday love will be
a tall branch on a spring day.
And it will be the tug of freedom
that surges in one small squirrel,
and in all of us
who share this wondrous world.
And love will be the gift
in every blessed one of us
who knows we are kin
to each beating, hopeful heart
that fall into our lives.

--Timothy Haut