Autumn Equinox Creature Song
by Uche Ogbuji
Summer is receding out
Shape up to yell “Shoo!”
The leavings of trees whip through the breeze
And garnish the crumbs we strew;
Away rats: “Shoo!”
Raccoon rattles our dumpster lid,
Coyote prowls the avenue,
Black bear breaks wind from the turkey we binned;
Blaze the spotlight: “Shoo!”
“A mountain lion!” shrills dusk rumor
From the spooked school janitor crew
While timber wolf ghosts and bison by hosts
Stampede our dreamy “Shoo!”
Can’t shoot up bobcat shadows:
Ordinance rules out the .22;
However accursed they were here first—
Famous last words: “Shoo!”
Uche Ogbuji (website), born in Calabar, Nigeria, lived, among other places, in Egypt and England before settling near Boulder, Colorado, where he lives with his wife and four children. Uche is a computer engineer and entrepreneur whose abiding passion is poetry. His poems have appeared in sundry journals, and within the last year in The Raintown Review, IthacaLit, Unsplendid, String Poet, Mountain Gazette, YB Poetry, Scree Magazine, Victorian Violet and Shadow Road. He is editor at Kin Poetry Journal and The Nervous breakdown.
qarrtsiluni 