Susan Jarvis Bryant, ‘Armadillo’
A hand for the bandit in leathery livery
Advancing through grass to go grubbing in shrubbery –
Escaping the squeal and the squish of the rubbery
To comb and to roam neath the sun.
A bow to the wow of the charmer in armor,
A friend to the poet, a foe to the farmer –
This bug-crunching muncher, this flowerbed harmer,
Is digging up dirt just for fun.
A nod to the plod of this sod-lobbing critter
Whose shovel-shaped nose prods the gardeners bitter –
He begs me to bless him with lexical glitter
Till wittiest ditties are spun.
*****
Susan Jarvis Bryant writes: “When I first arrived in Texas from the UK, I had an overwhelming urge to feast my curious eyes upon an armadillo. I saw plenty of squished unfortunates callously labeled “roadkill”, but there wasn’t a live one in sight… until five years later on a bike ride at the local wildlife refuge, I saw my first wild armadillo (silver armor gleaming in the midday sun) rooting for grubs on the grass verge. Brimming with joy, I leapt off my bicycle and oohed and aahed from as near as I could possibly get. A lady walked towards me. My husband warned me not to get too exciteable about my find, as armadillos weren’t the most charming of Texas critters. I beg to differ, and the lady (from northern parts, apparently) was as excited as I was. To my husband’s undisguised surprise, we simply couldn’t get enough of this fascinating fellow. I had heard many stories (nearly all bad) and simply had to honor him the only way I know how – hence this poem. I love British hedgehogs and the armadillo is most certainly up there with his Kentish-countryside counterpart.”
Susan Jarvis Bryant is originally from the UK and now lives on the coastal plains of Texas. Susan has poetry published on The Society of Classical Poets, Lighten Up Online, Snakeskin, Light, Sparks of Calliope, and Expansive Poetry Online, The Road Not Taken, and New English Review. She also has poetry published in The Lyric, Trinacria, and Beth Houston’s Extreme Formal Poems and Extreme Sonnets II anthologies. Susan is the winner of the 2020 International SCP Poetry Competition and was nominated for the 2022 and 2024 Pushcart Prize. She has published two books – Elephants Unleashed and Fern Feathered Edges.
Photo: “Nine-banded Armadillo” by http://www.birdphotos.com is licensed under CC BY 3.0.
