In his ode to odes, he writes about his project:
[O]de-writing is a two-way street. The universe will disclose itself to you, it will give you occasions for odes, it will blaze with interest and appreciability, but you’ve got to be ode-ready.... Respond to the essence with your essence... [I]t gets results. Squirrels have treated me differently since I wrote an ode to squirrels: They give me the nod, those little fiends. And I see odes everywhere now. I see them boiling up from the ground where my dog squats to do his business. I see them poking down through the clouds in fingers of divine light. Your odes, too—can you see them?
From the above-linked ode to squirrels:
I love the wildness with which you accompany my unwildness, the many spikes of terror and gratification that pierce your soul while I’m wondering if I left the car unlocked.Is it my world, or is it yours? Is this a quiet, gray street, my street, or the set of a feral opera?
Why don't I have a tag for wildness? If I did, this would be my second post this morning with the "wildness" tag. I could create a tag for wildness and undertake the unwild project of retroactively adding it to all the posts in the archive that have the syllable "wild" and, on inspection, convey a "wildness" theme. But I'll just let this paragraph stand as an ode to uncreated tags.
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21 comments:
"Don’t whinge, don’t poke, don’t pick the scab of Time."
"Don't taunt Happy Fun Ball."
That excerpt from "Ode to Squirrels" is really lovely.
I can understand that a "wildness" tag might be unwieldy. I suggest a subset tag: Feral Opera. Whatever you collected would be like an ode to the blog.
This Kafka quote sounds like an ode to me:
"You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."
Ode to Squirrels
by tim maguire
When I was 4, my dog died. He was poisoned.
Someone said he probably ate a pinecone, baited to kill the squirrels.
I was aghast. Why? Who could want to poison a squirrel?
Now I'm an adult. A homeowner.
And I understand.
But I wanna know for sure.
tried to write comments here two hours ago; But there was a squirrel outside my window and i..
My ode to the coffee bean.
The sun kissed the bean
The bean ripped from its mother
The bean suffered the flame of the roast
The bean cracked and ground
The bean drowned in scalding water
The nectar of the gods
'till the end of viability.
Ode to Squirrels
I do not like them nor the things they do, they destroyed my attic and car engine too.
They intentionally, with pleasure no doubt, harass my dogs as they scamper about.
It’s a deadly game that they don’t always win, for the hawks are always watchful as sin.
It does my heart good to see them carried away, hawk babies need protein to grow and to play
Squirrel flesh is tasty I learned in my youth, but my wife won’t allow hunting, she calls me uncouth.
Bacon wrapped squirrel was always the best, Mom would serve them with gravy at Dad’s request.
Ode to My Baldness
A haiku by Andrew
The women mock me.
Every hair, a casualty
Of war. The sun sets.
".....jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule"
I suggest a new tag -- "critters"
I had a hunch “wild” usage peaked in the late 90s.
I love when that happens
Off the top of my head comes Movie - Wild at Heart, Tv - Wild Palms (expectations were off the charts) and Tv - Shark Week when I first heard guys talking about a tv show. That was wild.
The so-called "quote" from Horace is fake. I mean, I know he said it was a "liberty-taking translation," but he only got one word right (it was "gods"). That isn't any kind of translation.
I believe every time the word "squirrel!" is used it should be accompanied with an exclamation point.
My God, I can't believe that person went to college, earned a degree, and someone actually paid them to write this: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/06/an-ode-to-writing-odes/673793/
Ode to Gophers
Fresh excavations
strewn upon my grass.
Daily, like upchuck
the guts of my lawn
piled high by critters
afraid of the light.
A curse upon me -
an innocent bloke
Just trying to keep
things presentable
to the neighborhood.
Darts, poison, and gas
have little effect;
Only the Macabee
ensures the buggers
get stopped in their tracks.
And their carcasses
give the scavengers,
and ants, and insects
a cold rodent dinner.
I hate the word "whinge"
Saint Columbanus, 543-615, the original blogger and original deplatformed blogger of Europe, frequently got into trouble with Kings for his writings and with women for his hedonism.
So God sent him to dwell among wildlife in the woods, and whenever Columbanus was about to get himself in trouble again, squirrels came out of the trees and nested in his pockets to remind him of his duty to God, and he had cordial relations with other forest creatures, including bears. His iconography is a monk shaking hands with a bear.
God was onto something. Squirrels are everywhere. If the mere sight of one makes you stop and reflect on what you might say or do next, the world would be a peaceful place.
When the universe gives you a gift, send a thank-you note. Sure thing!
And when the universe ignores you and lets you get on with your life, keep your head down, go on about your life, and hope the kindly disinterest continues. The universe can be, and usually is, very unpleasant to interact with directly.
And as for squirrels, in my childhood a family Cocker Spaniel whose life centered on chasing our backyard squirrels once caught one, killed it, and tried to swallow it whole. Were it not for the rapid de-squirrelination of the dog by my father, good old Ferocious would not have lived long enough to be run over, years later, by the man who saved his life. Cocker Spaniels were very overbred in the 1970s and dumber than an entire bag of hammers.
So, perhaps an ode to the squirrel that nearly killed my dog! Suicide Attack Squirrel, you nearly succeeded!
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