Exquisite Porcupine

She nibbles on old wooden steps,

wild roses shrink away in awe,

ambles on her way

poking around… curiously,

wondering why…

but knowing not.

The dark lines

would lead her back.

The bees get their breakfast,

“Eat at Joe’s.”

I didn’t know I would come

but I wanted to.

The snakes undulating all the way

through wildflowers.

- by Matt Daly, Fred Kingwell, Wendy Merrick, Mimi, Sue Mortensen, Carol Schneebeck, and Connie Wieneke

This poem was created at the National Museum of Wildlife Art in conjunction with the “Exquisite Animal” exhibit, which runs through February 5, 2012, at 2820 Rungius Road.

The Trap

“. . . the way

The night knows itself with the moon.”

-Rumi, The Big Red Book

Nights running my husband set the trap, rammed the Havahart between the chicken coop’s gate, looped the wire as if it, like the hens the fox desired, might tantalize the fox—the one who, like the night, “knows itself with the moon;” as if the fox might forget what it knew and walk into that strange mechanical den. Nights running my husband dreamed the fox into forgetting what it knew of what’s what and what is not: the scent left by fences and houses, the geography shifted by moonlight and cloud, the landscape of shadow where the hay mice snoozed and the hens roosted. Nights running my husband dreamed. But at dawn, while my husband dozed like a god, the trap was tripped by a skunk.

- Connie Wieneke 

Connie Wieneke lives in Wilson, Wyoming.