Chipmunks have reentered my stone walls

and flitter-twitch across the open grass

guessing that a thing as grossly large as me

cannot be a healthy coexistence. They dart

into the spaces between rocks, suspicious

little sentinels intent on their anonymity.

I could with time and guile persuade them

to take peanuts from my fingers, but

that would cheapen our relationship.

Most won’t survive the warm season,

cats and hawks and short lives culling

the scurrying stripes on my lawn,

and I must take comfort and pleasure

from the few seconds that we share.

---

Ed Ahern resumed writing after forty odd years in foreign intelligence and international sales. He’s had over 550 stories and poems published so far, and twelve books. Ed works the other side of writing at Bewildering Stories, where he squats on the editorial board.