Super-Sized Series

 Creature Rescues


 

The Day Dad Resuscitates the Squirrel Drowning in our Swimming Pool by Shelly Blankman

My sister, brother and I were still sopping wet from swimming in our backyard pool and we’d gone into the kitchen to dry off. like we always did. We giggled as always as Mom reminded us to wipe our feet so we didn’t track any muddy grass from the yard on her freshly waxed floor. We were all preteen, and getting in trouble was our favorite part. 


As we left to go upstairs, I saw something in the pool. It was small and reddish, floating like a dinghy in the water, its orange tail limp.

We always saw squirrels where we lived. They blanketed the evergreen trees in front of our house. And they always made happy noises. This little guy didn’t stand a chance. 

We called dad, who was upstairs working, and begged him to help. Saving a drowning squirrel was not his forte, but he was always up to a challenge. He took the net meant for cleaning algae and bugs out of the pool and scooped out the poor squirrel and cradled into what now looked like giant hands.

He whispered to me to get him a washcloth and swaddled the squirrel, gently squeezing its sides several times.

The tiny squirrel finally opened his eyes, facing a grown man who’d earned an 8th degree black belt in karate. He then scurried off, perhaps to dry in the sun and spend the rest of his life just being a squirrel.

 

April 22, Morning Walk by Joe Cottonwood

Panicky cheeping to my ears.
A dozen ducklings in a storm drain 
deep as I am tall
can't climb can't fly can't escape 
except down the big pipe.
Mama duck above the drain 
stands frantic, flapping and quacking.

So I lower myself 
into gloppy gunk over my ankles.
Scoop with my clasped hands 
twelve fuzzy wigglers
with underbellies of slime
one by one 
and set them above.

Mama duck warns of discipline 
as smelly ducklings in a peep line 
follow her to cattails, and gone. 

I resume my walk in mucky shoes, 
socks stinking of rot.

Had to do it. Right?
Happy Earth Day. 

 
Two poems by Sharon Waller Knutson

Tis the Season

Going outside. Got to get the roof fixed
before the monsoons, my husband says
as I sit at the computer answering emails.
I feel something soft moving
under my bare feet and scramble 
on unsteady legs, knee screaming.

A two-inch creature crawls towards me
as I squint through eighty-year-old eyes.
Is it a tarantula, scorpion, or another
desert creature escaping the hot sun?

The saw screeches from the sun porch.
I stare out the sliding glass door
as my husband climbs the ladder to the roof.
The creature follows me as hanging
onto the bedpost I head for the shoe
pile next to the nightstand so I can
walk outside and call to him.

As I pick up the only shoe that fits
my swollen foot, I turn and a tiny mouse 
stares up at me. My heart lurches
and I drop the shoe. Where’s your mother?
I ask the trembling creature at my feet. 

I find a cup on the nightstand
and place it in front of the mouse
which freezes and stands and stares.
I shut the door and collapse on the couch
until my husband appears. Are you okay?

There’s a baby mouse in the bedroom, I say.
We’ve got to find the mother. My husband
opens the door, scoots the mouse into the cup
and as he heads out, says. I just released 
a big mouse outside this morning. 

I glance over at the window to see a lizard 
plastered to the glass staring outside
where the baby mouse runs to his mother.
Tis the summer season, I say, laughing.



The Mousetrap is Missing 

from the kitchen counter
my husband discovers
as he brews his coffee.

He hears clattering
and clomping
on the tile

as a mouse drags
the trap behind him
like a heavy suitcase.

Sees the trap containing
the mouse tail tipped
on its side outside

a cupboard while
the mouse is inside
making mischief.

While my husband
grabs a giant glove
to pick up the trap

and captor, the crafty
culprit makes its getaway
and the game of Man

and Mouse or Catch
A Mouse by the Tail
continues for ten days

until we hear a clacking
noise in the living room
and see the trap bouncing

on the tile and my husband
grabs the trap and carries
it outside and releases the mouse.

 


Two poems by Lynn White


Dragonfly

It was so beautiful,
gleaming huge and iridescent
gold and green and blue and black.
With wings that should have been clear,
filled with shining rainbows 
not like this, twisted at strange angles 
and dulled with sticky silk.
Not stuck there waiting
to be prepared for some spider’s supper.

I held it gently 
and took it from the web.
I carefully removed the sticky silk
and saw the rainbows sparkle as they should,
saw it’s eyes brighten and gleam 
with the prospect of freedom.
It took a while, this disentanglement,
a delicate task to free this fragile creature.

And when it was ready,
I opened my fingers and
let it fly away.
It bit me then.
No parting kiss,
but a bite that
left a bruise.
Such gratitude!

First Published in Foxglove 2017






 
 
......

Stripy Jerseys

There were a lot of ragwort plants
around the library.
Some were bare of leaves and covered
with orange and black stripy jersey caterpillars.
Others were lush and green with leaves
and devoid of caterpillars.
As usual the family planning strategy
of the cinnabar moth
left much to be desired.
I began to transfer them carefully
from the leafless to the lush.

I stood back to admire my achievement,
momentarily disconcerted
when a rather stern looking stranger
asked what I was doing.
I explained.
“Huh”, she said,
“I’ve been doing the same over the other side.
I though it was only me who does this.”

It was a strange way to begin a friendship
but it lasted
all her life.
I think maybe I should go to the grave
in the woodland,
where her body lies
and scatter a few ragwort seeds.
Maybe the moths will come
each year
and make 
a living memorial.
She would like that,
I think.


 

Two poems by Alarie Tennille

My Drinking Buddy 


Reading after dinner, I reach 
for my glass ¬– find a fruit fly floating 
in it – a lush, French pinot noir, one of our wines of the month 
from Underdog. (I’m not making that up.) Now the underdog 
is little FF.

As I tip the wine toward my mouth,
I keep watch. I don’t want to swallow him 
any more than I want to sacrifice good wine. Every time the wine 
comes toward me, he floats back. Hello. Goodbye. Hello. Goodbye.
I try to catch him on dry glass ¬– 
offer escape if he’s alive.

I dip a finger in and scoop him out. 
He staggers over soft hand, hard nail. 
Is he drunk or just half drowned? He struggles to flutter wings – 
too soggy. I blow on him, trying to help. My gale force carries him off.
He lands on my lap throw – 
a wine-colored desert. 

He wanders up and down dunes, away 
from me, then back for ten minutes. 
(Probably forty years to a fruit fly.) I blow more gently. Come on, 
little buddy, I whisper. (Wouldn’t want anyone but him to hear.)

He lifts off!

 
 


Rimsky Is My Name


At least I think so.
I had some other name before,
maybe more than one. Didn’t
see the point.

Spent my first five months
in kitty jail. Lots of other cats there.
What did I do wrong?

One day I got shipped to a different
jail. Some lady smiled at me. You may
hold him, said the jailer.

When Lady put me down. I reached
my paws through the bars and held
her hands. Mine, I thought.

I want this one, she said, taking
my picture. I didn’t see her
for a long, long time. Nobody 
told me why. 

She finally came back. 
You’re my baby now, she said. 
For days and days, she’d pet me saying,
Rimsky, Rimsky, Rimsky.

I couldn’t say im or ski, just the r-r-r-r.
One day when she said, Rimsky,
I turned and looked at her.

She smiled. He knows his name!
I went right to her, and I guess
that’s why we need names.







 



ASCHENPUTTEL by Lorraine Caputo
(Cinderella)
 
One day she arrived
on the back stoop
stealing the food
left for other cats
 
her fur ashy, her eyes
dull, teats pinked but
no signs of giving birth
 
(her too-young malnourished
body resorbed the fetuses,
life-giving nutrients …)
 
I took her in, wetting
her food so she could eat
(her teeth were loose)
 
stroking her, her cinder-
colored fur fell in my
hand, drifting between
my fingers
 
With time she healed,
her coat lustrous, red
gleaming beneath the
heavy bed of cinder-
black and ash-beige