All Things Ornery

—Poems and Photos by Taylor Graham, Placerville, CA

OUT OF CONTROL
       an unruly sonnet

Ornery is the word for ground-squirrels.
They consume our garden, under-
mine our fields and pebble-deck. Famished
and ornery, skittering across landscape
then zip! down a tunnel, gone into labyrinths
of g-squirrel metropolis underground,
thumbing their rodent noses at us.
My dog, generally obedient, goes berserk.
Deaf to my call, blind to the upper-world of
light. Look, she’s stuck her nose
in a burrow, she’s excavating, buried
head-to-shoulders, digging ever deeper.
Small chance she’ll catch a critter.
Might she at last become one of Them?

ORNERY

a found poem from “Bison Gone” 

         from Mountain Democrat

Beneath Bass Lake Grade, a window
into the past, children on the fence gaping.
Beautiful site of buffalo roaming the hills;

a series of belligerent majestic
prairie creatures, an alpha bull named
“Ornery.”

Force Ornery into the trailer?
Transporter with too much attitude—
Ornery threw that know-it-all cowboy

in the air/on the ground.
Magnificent bison,
a love affair with the rolling hills.

WOULD I KNOW HER IN THE DARK?

In front of the library in last-light, the path’s lit
just enough to outline the contours of a pull-cart
with constricted human form sitting against it.
Surely the same woman I saw once not counting
calendar, reading her book open-air in front
of this lending temple of words. So colorful
by daylight, almost tapestried she was; now in
twilight, honed down to essentials, monochrome,
bone. How can she read with no illumination?

a bat zig-zagged past,
self-guided in its knowing
between dark and light

ADVICE FROM AN EXPERT

I’m on the phone about tech
problems. Internet’s down, I’m cut off
from—what?
Flutter against the window, a small
brown bird, long curved bill
for snatching insects out of sight.
House wren cocks her tail, says she has
no connectivity
issues; the world is fine. I end
the call and walk outside.
Cool sunny morning, a stiff breeze
rising.
The wren is right.

OH, IT’S PRETTY

Embroidery of palest jade green,
the volunteer vine taken root
in our garden, our pasture; tiny leaves
heart-shaped on knotted tendrils,
unbreakable thread. What is it?
Nobody seems to know. Sheep won’t
eat it. Mowing brings it back
ornerier than before. It’s come to stay,
like a decorative Welcome, a Home
Sweet Home needled to cover
the floor. What’s wrong with bare
soil sprouting plain, edible grass?

HIGHER DESIGNS

Do we go with the fortune cookie
or the mandala? We’ve left the comfort
of coffee shop for October twilight, veering
into a back alley where you almost trip
on cobblestone. I think of frozen nights
to come, the orneriness of weather;
the folks who sleep behind hedges for lack
of a roof, regardless of regulations
against illegal camping. Overhead, stars
line up in patterns we name for old myths—
those stars long burned out, for all
the light they give us.
I still like to gaze at stars.

Today’s LittleNip:

RUSTLING IN THE WOODS
—Taylor Graham

Wind walks the October woods
rattling leaves of buckeye and oak.
Someone has made a forest trail
of spooks, skeletons, ghosted stones.
The autumn woods are haunted,
our old dead dogs chasing the wind.

____________________

Many thanks to Taylor Graham for her fine poetry and photos of the darkness of those haunted woods, commenting on our recent Seed of the Week: Ornery (which of course includes computers).

Today is a busy day for poetry events in our area, with Third Thursdays at the Central Library at noon in Sacramento, and a choice of Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Cafe in Sacramento at 8pm, or Leanne Grabel at Poetry in Davis, John Natsoulas Gallery, also 8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Bull bison at Yellowstone, similar to “Ornery”—

and probably just as, well, ornery.

—Anonymous Photo
(Celebrate poetry!)

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.