The squirrel,
by Leonor Henríquez

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       The little squirrel was busy opening a nut, not caring about anything else around it.

They are tiny, but incredibly agile and I would say intelligent.

Anyway, in these times when sometimes one cannot avoid what happens in our upside-down world, I stayed there looking at the squirrel for a long time.

I returned home ready to work on a children’s poem, an assignment for an English magazine called “Caterpillar”; but of course, before starting I could not help but check the world news.

I quit very fast, frightened, as always.

I needed to “cleanse my palate” before returning to my poetic task, so I don’t know if it was by fate or chance, or the internet that sometimes reads our deepest thoughts, I came across a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) called “The Mountain and the Squirrel”.

It wasn’t just a coincidence that I had just been enraptured by watching a little squirrel devouring a nut, this was spooky.

The poem begins with an argument between the mountain and the squirrel.

The arrogant summit called the squirrel “Little prig”.

And off they went.

The little squirrel replied “You are doubtless very big… and I think it is no disgrace to occupy my place, if I’m not so large as you…”

You can understand now that this discovery was more than a contemporary simple chance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, never imagined the relevance of his poem these days.

I looked out the window again to see if the little squirrel was still there and thank him for his tremendous courage and inspiration.

Of course, the little rodent was no longer there.

The poem, I think more of a visionary fable, ends up with these wise words from the squirrel:

“Talents differ;

all is well and wisely put;

If I cannot carry forests on my back,

Neither can you crack a nut”.

 Now I’m ready to sit down and write my children’s poem, maybe I’ll include a little squirrel running around.

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