How To Eat
Poems get written from watching
closely as things happen
each its own yet entangled
with the rest of us
and working with those links.
Most experiences are dumb, but a few
come tabbed with phrases
a writer can work with
and a reader follow
with a bit of practice
and Keats’ “Negative Capability”
i.e., tolerance for and persistence
in uncertainty.
In the back yard a small squirrel
in winter dress-grey-and-black
sits on its haunches with a bit of something
in its tiny paws, showing us how to eat.
To follow, we have to forget
everything we knew about consumption
as though we weren’t defined by it.
Its little jaws are working, working
hurrying as at any moment
something will snatch it away
some other new thing so enticing
the squirrel will forget to eat
even how to eat;
being enveloped by amazement
that overcomes us just before hunger.
The Dog Star 
2 Responses to “How To Eat”
Simple. Precise. I am often “enveloped by amazement
that overcomes us just before hunger”
Thanks Bro! I am too.