So, This is Lunch Then?

 So, This is Lunch Then?

A frozen maple seed whirlygig,

tugged from the snow with cold claws,

stripped from a small brown twig,

and clutched to his teeth in his paws,

the squirrel's lunch is served alfresco

washed down with water lapped

from a fallen icicle in the snow.

Would you be happy with a meal like that?

Not me.  I wouldn't.  Oh no!

No, no, I really don't think so.

With a satisfied twitch of his bottle brush tail,

the grungy-furred gray squirrel finishes his meal

and scampers off leaving a trail

 of tiny tracks in the snow as part of the deal.

And I give thanks that I'm not a squirrel

who eats frozen maple tree whirlygigs for lunch.

I'm quite happy, thank you very much, to be a girl

with a peanut butter sandwich, a glass of milk, 

and a just-right yellow banana pulled from the bunch.

*   *   *   *  *

Although it was still bitterly cold, we had a bright, sunny day today with amazingly clear blue skies. The icicles outside my kitchen windows really stood out against that blue background and sparkled as if they were crystal daggers.  I couldn't resist taking a few pictures of them because they looked so pretty.  The squirrel in the picture above was eating winged maple seeds on the ground below my window and licking at the icicles there that had been knocked into the snow by the winds of the blizzard.  Watching him inspired the poem above.