We Belong to What We've Never Known

The dark squirrel silhouettes
In the long dark firs scurry
All through the hot afternoon.

It's been a weak, wet summer,
The floods only just receded,
And the heat now doesn't mean

The days aren't already dimming.
The squirrels, the living ones
Active in the living trees,

Haven't known much else,
Maybe one or two summers,
Not much to go on, but look

How they answer to themselves
Not to their experience, not
To the world they've known.

It's the long-dead squirrels
Who ghost living woods successfully
In those descending silhouettes.

We've been carved to prepare
For events we've never experienced
And never suspect happen.