Last year's hazelnuts

Your weekly dose of fresh poetry #107

A red squirrel
crosses my path
at the slowest part
of my run.

(I was walking...)

He seems to be
looking for food
rummaging around
on both sides of the path.

And as he does so
he seems not to be
frightened enough
by my approach.

(I think he should be).

Is finding food becoming
too difficult now that
our summers are warmer
and dryer?

Suddenly I know
what to do with
last year's hazelnuts.

We had a very hot and dry summer this year. Again. Sure, we enjoyed it, but there was also this feeling of discomfort. Now, I’m fortunate enough to live in an environment with lots of trees in it. I see a lot of green on a daily basis. I noticed, though, that some of the trees around us are acting like it’s already autumn. They’re shedding their leaves. That’s early at the end of August, the beginning of September. Very early. I’ve also noticed a lot of acorns and chestnuts lying about. So, when I was running along the river the other day, and I saw a red squirrel rummaging through the leaves on the ground, I noticed how close I could get to it before it took off. That’s not how squirrels normally act. So, it worried me a little.

Fortunately, we have some hazelnuts we harvested in our garden last year. If we see the squirrels in our neighbourhood having trouble finding food, we’ll get them some of those.

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Something to listen to

This time I am trying a new function in Substack. Well, it is not really new, but it is the first time I am going to use it. I have a recording of this week’s poem, and instead of letting you click a link and move to another place, you can play this right here. Let me know what you think.

Last time I may have misled you a bit in this section. So, the game is not just “guess the movie”, but “guess the movie or series” in which the music on this playlist played a role. Some are obvious, others might not be. In any case, I think it’s a fun list to listen to:

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Have you already collected an edition of my “Life’s little pleasures” NFT series? Please do!

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Poetry elsewhere

One of the reasons why I love poetry is that it brings me different ways of seeing things. Personally, I try to live without regret. Surely, some things do not go as planned or wanted or wished, but when you learn from it, I see it as a valuable experience. This poet has a different view. Or maybe it isn’t. In any case, it’s a great poem. Read Regret is a lighthouse by Jamison Dove.

What’s in a name? We certainly took some time to decide which names to give our children. Our son later, at the age of 5 or 6, even added one for himself. But are the names really representative of the people they will become? Does your name fit you? I don’t really mind my name. It’s my name, how people can refer to me. But I’m not sure that I find it very fitting for who I am. Then again, what would be? At the very least it’s the first present my parents gave me. And the one I am holding onto longest. But enough about me. Suzanne, or Susan, has written a lovely poem, BY ANY OTHER NAME, about precisely this.

BY ANY OTHER NAME

I really like the work of Marta Gazzola. Her poetry is mesmerizing and all by itself a wonderful melting pot of humanity. Marta mixes languages as skilled as she mixes words. This one, sul bagnasciuga, is a very lovely poem about people on the beach on a not-so-sunny day. You can even treat yourself to an NFT edition of it. Read here.