Prescience

I find the little cache of dog food and sunflower seeds
carefully tucked into the insulation of the attic
brought up from two whole floors below, and I wonder
if the mouse or rat who brought all of this food so far up here
knows something I don’t, is tapped into some cosmic channel
that warns only rodents of coming ice ages or cataclysmic meteor strikes.
I watch the squirrels out the window as they
get fatter and fatter as the trees give up and drop their leaves
wonder if they know something about the upcoming winter that I don’t
if I’m doomed to be trapped in my own house without food
eventually find myself in the frozen tundra of the yard
searching frantically for the acorns these same squirrels have left behind.

Holly Day