He lay on his side on the sidewalk, white and gray, and there was nothing hideous about him. His eyes were closed, there was no blood. I don't think he was struck by a car. I wonder if he died of a fall; such things do happen. Or of a sickness. Though his coat was rich. And he looked plump enough. Who knows? The tree nearest to where he lay was a silver maple, and a very tall and handsome tree at that, planted close enough to the sidewalk to have caused some buckling in the concrete. When I first came on the body, I looked up into the branches of the tree, wondering if maybe he had a nest there. I didn't see one, so maybe it wasn't exactly home to him. Still, you might call it his final address. And I would also say that, if you could choose a tree under which to stretch out and die—something simulating the dome of heaven, like the fan vault at King's College in Cambridge—that silver maple would be a pretty good choice. I wouldn't have minded it for my own last view.
The house, in front of which stands the silver maple and beneath which lay the squirrel, used to belong to a couple who were living in the neighborhood when we first moved to Sunnyside. They were about our age, maybe a little younger, and they had a baby, and their neighbors also had a baby. The babies learned to walk, and they were friends, in the way that babies are friends, playing in familiar parallel with each other until boom there's some kind of collision of desires or maybe even an actual collision that has to be cleared away by the parents. Anyhow it was always so pleasant back in our first days in the neighborhood, during the warm months, to walk past those two houses in the late afternoon or early evening, because there they would be, all the grown-ups just watching the babies and chatting away. It was exactly the way a neighborhood ought to be.
Well then one of the couples sold the one house and moved somewhere else in the area, and the other (the family with the silver maple) went to Peru believe it or not, because that's where the father's folks were from and I guess some opportunity presented itself in the way of work. Now at the house with the maple, there are no babies outside. Not anymore. Instead what happens is that during the warmer times of the year, the lawn service comes now and then with their chemical fingers to turn the knobs on the flower garden and to adjust the contrast level on the lawn occasionally too. Then in winter the driveway gets plowed, but the sidewalk does not. Instead the snow just piles up on the sidewalk beneath the maple. I wonder if the owner even knows that there is a sidewalk. I kind of doubt it. I mean, just look at the squirrel.
Well finally I guess I just decided it was time for someone to show some respect. Some reverence for the dead. Some sense of class about the sidewalk. So the day before yesterday, I buried the squirrel—just off the walk, but still snug up to the maple. I used just what tools and materials I had on hand, which was a thick stick and some garden dirt and some pieces of bark and also some spare but useful moments of my time.
As I worked, I sang. I sang to the body of the squirrel. I have a kind of shaman-sounding voice that I use when I'm working with anything natural now, especially plants, but I guess with squirrels too. It's nothing impressive, this singing voice. Just a sort of right-brained glossolalia sung down low, that I like to make to lilt. And I'm convinced that the plants recognize it and enjoy it. And maybe the ghost of a squirrel. Why don't I just sing in English? Well, because regular words are just way too specific. They don't say anything that's wide enough to encompass what I'm trying to communicate to plants and squirrels and such like. But the shaman voice does, and so that's what I use.
But so I sang. I sang to a bunch of squirrel memories. Memories of jumping from branch to branch like an acrobat. Of hiding nuts away in gutters and flower gardens and garage attics. Of eating all those nuts for midnight snack. Of walking along the telephone wires now and then. Of chasing other squirrels here and there for love and hate. Of curling up on a rainy day in a nest of leaves tucked away in the fork of some high-up branches of an oak, and just lying there and moving with the wind. Swaying here and there. Nothing wrong with that. Just being lazy some days. Just being lazy like that.
So anyway I sang as I moved him with a stick. And I sang as I slid him from the sidewalk to the base of the maple tree—to a sort of harbor there between two large, kindly roots. And I sang a little more as I dug some dirt with the same stick and covered him up with it. And finally I sang as I took a few pieces of maple bark and planted them on top of the little mound of dirt. Like flags I guess. Here lies a squirrel. Friend of this maple. Friend of the earth.
And now I'm writing this. Well squirrel. This is just to say that someone knows you're gone. Thanks for your life in our neighborhood. Thanks for your death on the sidewalk, by means of which you gave me the chance to reacquaint myself with what St. Francis called our Brother Death. Thanks for choosing the maple, if that was your choice. And thanks for the chance to remember the family that went to Peru. And just in general thanks for giving me a little chance to be decent. And to sing. Hope you liked it. It's sure a beautiful world isn't it? I do wish more of us would notice it.
Cheers and have a good afterlife. Maybe in Peru?
HB
(Next post December 22nd)
The house, in front of which stands the silver maple and beneath which lay the squirrel, used to belong to a couple who were living in the neighborhood when we first moved to Sunnyside. They were about our age, maybe a little younger, and they had a baby, and their neighbors also had a baby. The babies learned to walk, and they were friends, in the way that babies are friends, playing in familiar parallel with each other until boom there's some kind of collision of desires or maybe even an actual collision that has to be cleared away by the parents. Anyhow it was always so pleasant back in our first days in the neighborhood, during the warm months, to walk past those two houses in the late afternoon or early evening, because there they would be, all the grown-ups just watching the babies and chatting away. It was exactly the way a neighborhood ought to be.
Well then one of the couples sold the one house and moved somewhere else in the area, and the other (the family with the silver maple) went to Peru believe it or not, because that's where the father's folks were from and I guess some opportunity presented itself in the way of work. Now at the house with the maple, there are no babies outside. Not anymore. Instead what happens is that during the warmer times of the year, the lawn service comes now and then with their chemical fingers to turn the knobs on the flower garden and to adjust the contrast level on the lawn occasionally too. Then in winter the driveway gets plowed, but the sidewalk does not. Instead the snow just piles up on the sidewalk beneath the maple. I wonder if the owner even knows that there is a sidewalk. I kind of doubt it. I mean, just look at the squirrel.
Well finally I guess I just decided it was time for someone to show some respect. Some reverence for the dead. Some sense of class about the sidewalk. So the day before yesterday, I buried the squirrel—just off the walk, but still snug up to the maple. I used just what tools and materials I had on hand, which was a thick stick and some garden dirt and some pieces of bark and also some spare but useful moments of my time.
As I worked, I sang. I sang to the body of the squirrel. I have a kind of shaman-sounding voice that I use when I'm working with anything natural now, especially plants, but I guess with squirrels too. It's nothing impressive, this singing voice. Just a sort of right-brained glossolalia sung down low, that I like to make to lilt. And I'm convinced that the plants recognize it and enjoy it. And maybe the ghost of a squirrel. Why don't I just sing in English? Well, because regular words are just way too specific. They don't say anything that's wide enough to encompass what I'm trying to communicate to plants and squirrels and such like. But the shaman voice does, and so that's what I use.
But so I sang. I sang to a bunch of squirrel memories. Memories of jumping from branch to branch like an acrobat. Of hiding nuts away in gutters and flower gardens and garage attics. Of eating all those nuts for midnight snack. Of walking along the telephone wires now and then. Of chasing other squirrels here and there for love and hate. Of curling up on a rainy day in a nest of leaves tucked away in the fork of some high-up branches of an oak, and just lying there and moving with the wind. Swaying here and there. Nothing wrong with that. Just being lazy some days. Just being lazy like that.
So anyway I sang as I moved him with a stick. And I sang as I slid him from the sidewalk to the base of the maple tree—to a sort of harbor there between two large, kindly roots. And I sang a little more as I dug some dirt with the same stick and covered him up with it. And finally I sang as I took a few pieces of maple bark and planted them on top of the little mound of dirt. Like flags I guess. Here lies a squirrel. Friend of this maple. Friend of the earth.
And now I'm writing this. Well squirrel. This is just to say that someone knows you're gone. Thanks for your life in our neighborhood. Thanks for your death on the sidewalk, by means of which you gave me the chance to reacquaint myself with what St. Francis called our Brother Death. Thanks for choosing the maple, if that was your choice. And thanks for the chance to remember the family that went to Peru. And just in general thanks for giving me a little chance to be decent. And to sing. Hope you liked it. It's sure a beautiful world isn't it? I do wish more of us would notice it.
Cheers and have a good afterlife. Maybe in Peru?
HB
(Next post December 22nd)
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