Song For A Snake To Hum

Originally posted 6/5/2005.  From comments on the original post, I’m pretty sure I was in Orlando FL at the time I wrote this. Probably a business trip back in those days.  Not that it matters.

there are places like this
there have always been places 
just like this
where snakes
hold their tails in their mouths

you’d think that people seeing them
would stop pretending that
there is no proof
that every beginning 
contains its end

but people keep saying
if it happened
where’s the proof
that it happened

a snake eating
its own tail?
seems that would be
enough proof

but what happens
is that people
not trusting that what happens
happens and happens
again and again
not trusting those who tell them
that what happens happens
and happens again
and again
demand plural immediate unshakeable proofs
and though such things are common
any wait at all
allows them to forget and deny
that it ever happened

now we are here and
here’s another snake
reaching around himself
his tail wet from 
poison mouth

this is how things end and begin

how it happens
and happens and happens
again and again

this is a song for a snake to hum
as it waits patiently
for lessons to be learned
and things to stop happening
again and again and again

so it can stop biting its own tail
so it can stop dying