{"id":3809,"date":"2022-10-07T12:58:10","date_gmt":"2022-10-07T19:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/?p=3809"},"modified":"2025-02-07T12:53:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-07T20:53:03","slug":"to-appreciate-squirrels-by-joan-murray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/to-appreciate-squirrels-by-joan-murray\/","title":{"rendered":"“To Appreciate Squirrels” by Joan Murray"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Issue<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Found in Willow Springs 90<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Author Profile<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

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“To Appreciate Squirrels” by Joan Murray<\/h1>\n\n\n\n\nhttps:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/332\/2022\/10\/Joan-Murray-Revised-Squirrels.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n\n\n\n

 \nTo appreciate squirrels
\nyou have to walk toward Peterborough with Eric Gamalinda,
\ndown the steep part of High Street
\nwhere there are woods on both sides of the road.
\nIt should be a day or two before the summer solstice,
\nyou must be discussing feng shui-
\nwhen you suddenly see a squirrel on its hundredth daily crossing
\nfrom one side of the road to the other.
\nForget that Eric is an important poet in Manila-
\nEric says that everyone in Manila is an important poet-
\nthis isn’t a matter of authority.
\nWhat matters is that Eric sees the squirrel and shouts,
Look at that amazing thing!<\/em>\nAnd immediately you notice that the tail of a squirrel
\nis the incarnation of impulsive grace,
\nand you stand there motionless as it maneuvers that tail,
\nshaking off your received opinions, your discriminatory
\nattitudes, until it has disrobed itself
\nof you, and is only itself.
\nAnd you recall a morning when you were new,
\nwhen you still believed you could float through the window
\nif you pleased, when a squirrel came in from the fire escape
\nand stood on your crazy quilt, contemplating you eye to eye,
\nthe only thing that’s ever come to your bed unbidden.
\nOh, but then it was your mother, screaming<\/em>, screaming<\/em>,
\nas if she’d caught a molester.\nBut now that squirrel’s there again, starting to cross over,
\nand you’re standing with Eric Gamalinda,
\nseeing that thing<\/em>, as if you were in Eden and
\nit had no name, as if it were the first one,
\nunspoiled by the success of its adaptation to your<\/em> world,
\nand you think, my God, it is amazing<\/em>–
\na word you never thought you’d see in a poem,
\nmuch less put in one yourself,
\nbut you’ve just been walking with Eric Gamalinda,
\nwho comes from a place where there are no squirrels,
\nwho spoke without irony when he praised the squirrel,
\nwho gave you permission
\nto appreciate it.<\/p>\n\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":25234,"featured_media":3867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpo365_audiences":[],"wpo365_private":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3809"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38843,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3809\/revisions\/38843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test-inside.ewu.edu\/willowspringsmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}