| Rolling his great black ball in the long
grass,
my son passed a young snake, harmless and green.
The snake gazed at my son, eye glinting jet
against green-gold skin, the tiny forked tongue
flickering delicate, speculative,
in the morning sun. My father fetched his
shovel, lifted it above his head like
a patriarch of old preparing to
smite Evil. My mother kicked at the ball,
forcing it around the side of the house.
My son trotted after, calling "Mommy,
come!" Instead I lingered, unbelieving,
afraid to utter a word, afraid that
my son might hear me pleading, that he'd come
back around that corner, witness the blows.
For twenty long minutes my father hacked
at the snake; then he shoveled its innards
into the trashcan and banged down the lid.
"I had trouble with the head," he told me
afterwards. "You must cut off a snake's head,
otherwise the body will heal itself."
I whispered to my mother how beautiful
the snake had been. "It's something he can
control," she said. Not like screaming babies,
runny noses, the wolf at the door. Not
like old age, each day's reconnoitering
of the field, reassessing one's command.
Not like your grown children leaving home for
foreign lands, where perhaps they'll discover
more than one way of seeing things—more than
one kind of evil—more than one kind of
snake. Queer places, those, where local custom
holds that lost merit can be redeemed at
the temple gate, freed from a bamboo cage.
Lift up the trapdoor: tiny songbirds soar
heavenward, offering to jealous gods. |
