 The Great Chain of Being
starts with God, ends with dirt. Beetles rank below the pretty insects, the ladybugs and the dragonflies, and beetles rank behind the useful insects, the spiders and the honeybees. The lowly dermestid beetle occupies the unpleasant insect category, which puzzles me. If cleanliness is next to godliness, this beetle clean-up crew should get its due. I, for one, salute these truth tellers, who scavange the sins of the flesh, eating all that decay. Getting down to the beauty of bare bones, you might say.  Driving to Elko on a winter day storm clouds stacked from Lone Mountain to the Rubies. Jesus rays in all directions. Even the lonely house on Adobe Summit softened by snow and light. For a moment, looking down, you would think the whole damned town rests upon hallowed ground. For all I know, and this is true, a light shines right now on me and on you. A Christmas Memory and Joy to Our Imperfect World--Bernalillio County Medical Center, 197312/8/2019  Over the loudspeaker, “Christmas party radiology conference room at noon.”
We chipped in for cold cuts, brought goodies-- cheese and crackers, jello salad, Mexican wedding cookies. Mary Dullea brought posole to eat in paper cups. Spiked punch lasts fifteen minutes. Mrs. Petty whispers, “We shoulda made chicken soup for Dr. Kopperman.” Sandra brought bunuelos, made them in her Mexican cooking class. Consuela spits hers into the wastebasket, hisses to Teresa, “I’ve never tasted anything like that.” Sandra gets huffy, “They’re Mexico City style. Not New Mexico.” Kyle, the security guard, plays Santa. Evie gives me three pair of bikini panties, each with a drink recipe. Mary Dullea whispers she’s selling hot Navajo jewelry for her brother-in-law in Window Rock. The custodians have their party upstairs. Lucille comes down to ours and complains, “They’re playing Spanish music. I can’t understand a word of it.” She writes her recipe for sweet potato pie on a “While You Were Out” pad. It’s her new husband’s favorite. He’s from the Bahamas, hates Albuquerque. Mrs. Petty passes around a Christmas card to slip into Poopsie’s in-box. Poopsie is secretary to Dr. B, the chief of radiology. The card is a photo of a penis with glasses and a little Santa hat. Underneath it says, “Season's Greetings. Guess Who?’ Poopsie won’t come to our party. The way she refers to herself as “eg-ZEC-ative secretary,” I know she won’t show. Evie thinks Poopsie is having a mad affair with Dr. B. That may be true, but I think Poopsie hates all of us, especially this time of year. Evie is thrilled to be pregnant. We laugh when she pops a button because her boobs are getting big. The conference room is near the nursery and the maternity ward. When someone opens the door, you hear an infant cry. Mrs. Petty whispers, “Baby Hay-Soos,” every time.  You open the bedroom curtain
and it’s hallelujah outside. The ordinary patio gold-leaved, the cottonwood trees lit from within. For a moment you can withstand the splendor, accept the hallowed ground, believe in the glory of endings.  Each morning I mourn my reflection by asking a metaphysical question: Who is this woman watching me wash a crumpled face and brush ragged teeth? Why do I wonder whether I am seeing a doppelganger goose or a transgander? Here’s the Siri-us hitch: I ask my reflection a question and I’m replied by a virtual bitch. “Your face would turn a thousand ships the other direction,” she observes with bemused affection. Some days I’m glad for our mourning conversation, when the image of a disheveled septuagenarian gives me a special dispensation with a yawn, “You will miss me when I’m gone.” What if the one-legged tenant in the upstairs apartment
drops his boot with a thump and there you are staring at the ceiling, waiting, because you never bothered to learn who lives above, below, or about any neighbor, for that matter, and you are waiting for something that’s not going to happen, and you are missing out on meeting a really good person, but no, not you, with your negative expectation and lurid imagination, you insist on reading the worst in the paint’s imperfections, in the shadows and cracks, and you persist in believing doom follows gloom as night follows day and there you are waiting...  The rat-a-tat yap has finally stopped. What set off her terrier alarm? A neighbor who would do me harm? And when I head home late and get a flat at dark on the country road, should a stranger stop, would I take a ride to my abode? I never used to hesitate. Fear is a sensible trait. Nothing is wrong with caution. But age and the news confuse me into thinking the enemy might be you.  “Now we are having beautiful warm windless weather that is very beneficial to me. The sun, a light that for lack of a better word I can only call yellow, bright sulfur yellow, pale lemon gold. How beautiful yellow is!” Vincent Van Gogh Aged faces Bees buzzing in buttercups Cowardice! No, not so. Color of courage in Japan Daffodil’s diseased leaves Egyptian female pharaohs painted in ancient tombs Frogs with yellow bellies hop away and hide Gold the world over How to mark a Heretic Indian merchants Jaundiced skin means yellow fever Yellow Kid journalism Lemons and legal pads Moonlight and marigolds Nazis forced Jews to sew on their sleeves yellow triangles with the star of David Ochre horse painted on a wall at Lascaux Political praxis of Yellow Peril, pineapples; post-it notes Quince Standing in a stunning field of rape singing the “Yellow Rose of Texas,” Sun! star at the center of our solar system, staying stable for another five billion years Taxis, Turmeric, Tonka trucks Urine-stained underwear Visible of all colors--yellow with black--STOP! Wearing a yellow ribbon while waiting for John Wayne Xanthopsia, an eye condition in which objects appear yellow-- why Van Gogh loved yellow so Yellow submarines, where we all live with the Beatles Zinnias in your backyard
 Between me and the clothesline--
a bull snake whose blotches blend with wet dirt and dead leaves. No hiss or fake rattlesnake coil, still-- silly me--I shield myself with a plastic laundry basket. Last summer, I was enthralled by a bull snake in my apple tree. Disguised by the mottled bark, it stretched toward a robin’s nest, and, yes, I couldn’t help but wonder what the heck Eve was thinking. The year before, a pair mated near the garage door, and so much for rural advice, “They eat rats. They eat mice.” I said it twice before the urge took hold to hack them with a rake. Instead, I yelled, “Go get a room at the bullsnake motel!” Even now, there’s an image I cannot erase of the hapless snakes who tainted my space. “And swelled with thoughts/presumptuous…” from The Persians by Aeschylus Some say we, too, in the hands of a whack-the-water man. Ooooops! Did I open a whoop-ass worm can? Ew! Speaking of dog food, Baxter Boo dog clothes online Unicorn Fufu Tutu Iridescent Doggie Dress Rainbow Sequins for only fifty ninety-nine, comes in red, blue and purple, too. Psst! I’m selling Betsy Ross dental floss for real teeth and fake teeth, yessiree. You’re all crazy except me, me, me  |
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AuthorNancy Harris McLelland taught creative writing, composition, and literature for over twenty years and Conducted writing workshops for the Western Folklife Center, Great Basin College , and the Great Basin Writing Project . An Elko County native with a background in ranching. McLelland has presented her "Poems from Tuscarora" Both at daytime and evening events at the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko. Her essay, "Border Lands: Cowboy Poetry and the Literary Canon" is in the anthology Cowboy Poetry Matters . Categories |
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