OLD WEST DAYS by Taylor Graham
OLD WEST DAYS Eerie wail from a harmonica. A little girl’s got her favorite bracelet on, charms of ponies, cowboy boots and branding irons, she’s jigging a hand- dance to hoedown music of her own. Don’t mind the smoke from the blacksmith stall, it isn’t coal like in the old days. Eerie wail of wind through distances, folks traveled so far to get here, across prairies, mountains. So much they left behind. The historical museum’s making room for more outmoded stuff from household, field, and mining claim – stamp-mill; crosscut saw; cast-iron stoves, tubs and troughs and wooden dollies for 4 a.m. laundry; ploughs and harrows, lethal-looking farm tools for living back-when. Cast away, passed away. Eerie wail from a harmonica. Taylor Graham is a volunteer search-and-rescue dog handler in the Sierra Nevada, and serves as El Dorado County’s first poet laureate (2016-2018). She’s included in the anthologies Villanelles (Everyman’s Library) a...