wise squirrel

I am the wise squirrel
who climbs out of the underworld

and dances up the trunk of the Tree of Life.
Sitting in the high branches,
I sway in the wind as leaves clatter,
Reflecting the rising red sun.
I hear Divine rumors on the breeze,
and carry them down to the underworld
returning with the longings of the dead.

I am the apprentice of the moon-raven
who teaches me to look sideways at the world
to laugh in moments of sadness
and weep in moments of joy
to find the Truth through trickery
and find the lies amidst the truth.

The forest is my home;
tall pine and thick oak
birch, aspen, and spruce
roots drinking deep from the waters of memory.
But like the tamarack, I am between two worlds—
conifer yet changing,
golden like the sun,
silver like the moon.
I walk among the cities, remembering
a time before the Great Forgetting
when all were wild and free.
To these trapped, neither living nor dying, I am called.
These are my people.

For I am the wise squirrel
who climbs out of the underworld
and dances up, high up, the trunk of the Tree of Life.
Sitting in the high branches,
I sway in the wind as leaves chatter,
reflecting the setting red sun.
I hear Divine rumors on the breeze
and carry them down to the underworld
returning with the longings of the dead.