Of Arms and the Squirrel I Sing

Because little guys can be irresponsible, lazy, saga-worthy megalomaniacs too.

This is a rough draft; I'll be coming back to it later, but I figured that it would look better in legible type than in illegible handwriting.

Softly scampering, swiftly fleeing
He trembles and turns toward a nearby
Branch, a bough under bushy leaves
The fear unfounded, but fretting continues
This haunted hiding, the whole of a squirrel-life.
But even so, all along he eagerly dreams
Looking and longing for larger things
Dreams of the dread from dominion, the power
And might to maniacally make the world
In rodent-image; but roused from reverie, he dodges
A talon tipped to tear away such visions.
"You're late, you lazy lump.  Again,
And I will eat you entire.  Messengers
Are quick to come by, even if care is not.
Now, the news..." the nettles of boredom
Drone on, drilling deeply into Ratatosk
Who slumps silently and stupidly, while the eagle,
Heedless, hefts and hauls the noise-stones
Of officious errands and urgent proclamations
From his quarry of cares, cleared now of messages;
The checked-off cheers to his chum Nidhogg
Would hopefully be heard, if the herald could focus
And not gallop again after the gain of an acorn.
Impressing his displeasure, he pounces on the squirrel
Who, inattentive, now terrified, in talons is held
The raptor reaches down to relay, with a glare,
"Fail me and find yourself food."  That is all;
The lilliputian, loosed, leaves without waiting.

At a distance down, the drone grumbles
Of the respect rightfully required by those
Serving so very sedulously; besides
Those eagerly-sought acorns he had ambled after
Would make the mightiest messenger swoon,
And he trespassed his toils only twice (or thrice).
Following these fantasias, freezing in his steps,
Ratatosk reined his unruly mind
And mucked for marks upon this mire for signs
Pointing to the pressing pronouncements he would
Forget only as fatal follies.  A void;
And blankly, blearily, he began to wake,
A deathly dawn to his day.  He trembled,
And bashed his blundering brains on bark.
He has a headache, but hardly remembers
A single story for the serpent below.
With what wily wit and wisdom could he
Invent to veer his vessel of fate
Toward happier hopes?  He has a glimmer,
But the light lasts no longer than a breath.
A muttered oath, and more mumblings as down
The tree he traveled.  The tour of the sun
Around and round, and round again
Returns to the top of the tree; and finally,
The squirrel starts his steep descent
Into cold caverns with crumbling footholds,
Sounds of screams from centuries past;
An abyss whose black, bare maw
Would inhale hordes of heroes at a breath,
While rattling reptiles, writhing, drip
Their virulent venom on vicious wretches.

But the furred one finds no fear to be worse
Then the one which works his weary soul.
Not enough, three nightfalls, but Nidhogg is here,
With open eyes and evil stares
And typical reptilian tolerance.  Ratatosk
Feels his furry flesh go numb.  But now,
The crafty creature calls his thought
To muster and mass, to measure up for this stand.
Ratatosk the rodent-ruler cannot perish;
Else sung sagas of scintillating victory
Would belong to lesser lives.  He straightens,
Collects himself, coughs and clears his throat,
The serpent staring solidly, icily,
His teeth torturing the tree not far
From where the wily one stands.
"'There was an old serpent in Helsheim,
Whose scales are covered in fell slime,
He's worse than I, Eagle,
That slithering seagull,'
That's all that I have from my climb."

Such puerile, pusillanimous provocations
Would be suspect to studious students like us,
But maybe messengers were more believed
Before this first failure of trust;
Perhaps tearing at tree-roots brings toothaches, giving
The serpent a sharp, saw-toothed temper.
But the damage is done; the dragon hisses back
His own ode of anger.  The squirrel
Relishes his role and retells to the eagle
How ungratefully the gnarled great worm
Had seemed.  The squirrel had shared his message,
But the intemperate terror had taken the words
And spat them aside, to send back
Nothing but nettles to nail the bird's pride.

The messenger now makes up his messages, however
He pleases, playing in palaces of poetry.
The former friends feud, and never
Stop to seek a second opinion.
Ratatosk's ramblings of a rodent-run world
Fill his furry flippant head,
Now patient to pass as a pensive servant
Till the rule after Ragnarok arises....