Ourobouros
Liasis olivaceus
The scrub python beside the drive
is in a digestive state
having swallowed the world
swallowed the wallaby
body coiled between
branches almost invisible
Notes
This poem was written in the weeks following Cyclone Larry (2006), a category-5 cyclone with winds of around 300 kph (stronger that Hurricane Katerina).
Cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons) remind you of our impermanence. The winds spin on themselves and everything seems to be turned upside down with trees on houses, overturned cars, leaves scattered across the ground instead of on trees and more.
The ourobouros is represented as a snake eating its tail where past and future interlock. The snake or serpent is a figure widely seen among pre-patriarchal cultures. As Miriam Robbins Dexter notes in Whence the Goddess the ureaus in Egypt is the serpent that bites its tail and ‘represents the eternal cycle of birth, death and rebirth’ (p.6). Similar forms of the snake are found around the world. In the Greek tradition, the python guarded the shrine of the goddess Themis and in the later period the Pythia made oracular prophesies from the same cleft at Delphi after the god Apollo killed the snake.
The snake in the patriarchal era has been depicted as evil and the stories of her treatment are widespread in battles against the snake in the Garden of Eden, Leviathan in the Bible and dragons and monsters almost everywhere.
Pre-patriarchal images of the snake celebrate her in figures such as snake-haired Medusa, or Cassandra whose ears were licked by a snake and so she was able to foresee the future. Once again, Apollo intervenes after Cassandra fights against his assault and ensures she is never believed.
This poem is published in my book Earth’s Breath.
Copperhead Carousel: The Last Ride
It happened in the summer of the year,
When she was riding the merry go round.
Her horse was swift and leaped up and down,
Yet in her saddle she sat free of fear.
But then, as her brave steed galloped ahead,
A chunky snake jumped from those equine lips
And gave that little girl a heartfelt kiss
That sickened her and quickly left her dead.
Beware the bite that breaks the horse’s stride,
Watch for the needled jaws that open wide.
The dark pit viper in the horse’s head
Awakens when the steed circles wide:
It quickly strikes the little one’s soft side
And from that secret kiss she falls down dead.
————
Divine Will
What is the will of god? A game of chance,
The thirteenth loop on a new gallows knot?
Lord have mercy on that final dance,
The measured drop through time that time forgot.
Our cherub hemorrhaged til she suffocated,
Well in advance of the last trumpet’s blast.
The serpent, ancient enemy, unsated,
Remained her poisoner until the last.
Between hers and the viper’s seed, no hate
Abides, only the ancient enmity
Between us the upright and it the prostrate,
The dark, long cipher of eternity.
Our viper, pulled by sounds and feral scents,
Killed god’s child with fatal innocence.