Squirrely

Have you read The Squirrel? 

I wrote The Squirrel a few years back when first I heard about Kristen Garth’s Haunted Dollhouse series. I remember one of my first poems that I wrote when I was young was what I called a “story poem,” about a man traveling a long distance to find his lost love. I don’t write “story poems” often, but when I do, I really enjoy the feeling they give me, like I am young again. When I was a kid, I thought every poem had to rhyme, so I got really good at rhyming. I would practice my rhymes as I fell asleep at night the way other people would count sheep. Sometimes when I write, I feel like someone is doing the writing for me, particularly when it comes to fiction.

When I tell a story, I cannot tell you where it comes from. I don’t know if that’s the way it is with other writers, and while I usually know where my poems are coming from, when I write a story, I am often at a complete loss. The words pour out of my fingertips and into my Word document and I wonder where they come from. I have joked that I am possessed by some strange spirits that do the writing for me, but that isn’t truly a joke to me. I often wonder if there is someone else sitting at the keyboard besides myself.

Anyway, writing The Squirrel was like that. And I wrote it for a Halloween series, so it already had spooky undertones. And I swear  to you, when I started writing and I had no idea how it would end- I was simply  illustrating a squirrel on an October day. When it all came to a finish, I was shocked to find even more symbolism in what I had  written. It is not my best work; it is not typical of my work either, but it is one of my favorite poems. I haven’t had much of an urge to write lately, but I figured I would share this little bit about a poem for you, because I am trying to get myself back on track.

Happy weekend!