It's Coming to Get Me

I walked under the branches of my favorite tree,
an oak with spacious coverings and leaves that rose
from every possible angle. I used to sit there
when I was a little kid and scribble in my notebook
some picture of a squirrel running from Mr. Squiggles,
Amy's cat. She always thought the tabby was somehow disfigured
because of his striped fur coat.

But, now, as I stand under the branches,
I don't see Mr. Squiggles, or Amy,
just the squirrel, already old and tired of searching
for nuts under the trees. He doesn't run anymore,
just chatters with his fellow fuzzy-tailed rodents
and yells at them for making such an old geezer come out and work.
He complains to them that when he was a young squirrel,
the old squirrels never did anything and he always thought
they were the laziest beings on creation.
But they just laugh at him and agree that they were,
so the situation had to be remedied.
I might have agreed with them once, but in the old squirrel,
tired from outrunning Squiggles so much,
I realize it's coming for me too.