This is a poem with a prose introduction that is simply necessary, so please bear with me. The llama in this poem is behaving the way llamas really do - they have a reputation for spitting, hissing and refusing to move any longer when humans use them for pack animals and ask them to carry too heavy a pack. A llama will stop dead in its tracks and lie down, spit, hiss and even vomit.

When I read this about them, my mind immediately thought of Bartleby the Scrivener, a short story written by Herman Melville that I had to read my junior year in high school. As a teenager in the 60's, I immediately fell in love with Bartleby, who was the original rebel. Bartleby is an unassuming scribe who one day at work simply decides he will no longer take orders. He answers that he would rather not and then just stops doing anything.

Llamas, it would seem, are the Bartlebies of the animal kingdom. And so, this is my tribute to them.

Abstention
Abrogation
Animalworld's Bartleby.

Beast-of-burden,
besieged,
bowed.

Captive careworn caravan,
calculating capacity,
ceases carrying.

Choice clear:
decline,
default,
desist -
damn deferent degradation.

Defiantly demur -
disgorge even!

Embargo effort -
Emancipation.
Emerge empowered -
Euphoria follows.

Flout fealty,
foil fatigue.

Guttural hissing harangue
indicts ill-treatment.

Impertinent,
intractable
journeyer.

Kowtowing loathsome.

Legitimate maltreatment?
Never!

Onerous packs quash recipients.
Rebellion reaffirms,
renews.

Renounce subservience -
Spit!
Stubbornness teaches us valor -
Vomit!
Wage war!
X-tricate yourself.

Yokes?
Zilch.