Notes About The Poem
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Moonlight Cache-Poetry Challenge September 28, 2026
A squirrel rested upon an overhanging branch
surrounded by his cache of acorns
from earlier in the season~
small brown certainties
gathered one by one
through afternoons of industry,
through gusting leaves and
shortening days.
Tonight, however,
he touched none of them.
The stream moved softly below.
The moon lingered among the branches,
its silver moonlight settling
upon his whiskers,
upon the bark,
upon the waiting acorns.
He seemed less a gatherer
than a contemplative,
an old keeper of fortunes
reviewing his accounts.
All summer he had hurried.
All autumn he had stored.
Now the work was finished.
For one luminous, moonlit hour
abundance became stillness.
I wondered if he was ruminating
about the acorns,
not as food,
but as possibilities?
After all,
each carried a hidden oak.
Each concealed its own future forest.
Perhaps he was considering
which acorns would nourish winter, and
which might be forgotten
beneath leaves and snow,
only to awaken later
as saplings reaching skyward.
The moonlight touched them all equally.
The saved.
The spent.
The future trees.
The squirrel remained perfectly still.
No nibbling.
No burying.
No haste.
Only watching.
Suddenly, the scene felt oddly human.
How rarely we sit
among the things we have gathered,
the hopes, the memories,
the loves, the small achievements,
and simply admire them without reaching for more.
Below,
the stream continued
its silver passage
through darkness.
Above,
the moon d r i f t e d westward.
Between them sat the squirrel,
keeping company
with a handful of acorns
and a forest
not yet revealed.
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