Poem: "The Crookedness of the Serpent"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This poem is spillover from the November 7, 2017 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired and sponsored by Anthony & Shirley Barrette. It also fills the "wilderness" square in my 1-1-17 card for the Dark Fantasy Bingo fest, making blackout on that card. \o/


"The Crookedness of the Serpent"


In the wilderness of the Everglades
live countless kinds of snakes.

Some of them belong there.
Some of them do not.

For years, humans have
brought snakes as pets
and, upon tiring of them,
released them into the wild.

No matter how unsuited they are
to the habitat, some have survived:
The crookedness of the serpent
is still straight enough to slide
through the snake hole.

Burmese pythons have become
so common as to become a nuisance,
and evidence indicates that they are breeding.

So they are hunted with radio tags and
snake-sniffing dogs and tribesmen
brought from distant India.

While hunters are threshing
the grass for Burmese pythons,
the green anacondas slip by,
unnoticed, in the water.

The two species are
just different enough that
the checks on the pythons
do not affect the anacondas.

While people may worry
about the pythons now, it
is the anacondas that pose
the greatest threat in the future.

The irony is that people have
brought all this trouble on themselves.

The crookedness of the serpent is
nothing next to the crookedness of man.

* * *

Notes:

"The crookedness of the serpent is still straight enough to slide through the snake hole."
– Abraham Verghese

Burmese pythons have attracted python hunters.

Green anacondas may prove more of a threat in the long run.

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Burmese pythons will attack 'gators, and it's fifty/fifty who will win, occasionally both lose... but an anaconda will win nine times out of ten, and then come back for seconds.

And they're not above eating long pig either.

People should be worried, Mother Nature is preparing an unwelcome surprise for them down in the 'glades.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> Burmese pythons will attack 'gators, and it's fifty/fifty who will win, occasionally both lose... but an anaconda will win nine times out of ten, and then come back for seconds.<<

Not a good thing.

>> And they're not above eating long pig either.<<

Too true.

>> People should be worried, Mother Nature is preparing an unwelcome surprise for them down in the 'glades. <<

On the other hoof, the way climate change is progressing, it may wipe out the problem some other way.

Re: Thoughts

[siliconshaman]

Who knows, it's a chaotic system... but so far the predictions indicate that in effect, we're terraforming the glades to suit the Anacondas.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Except for the humans draining almost the entire system, resulting in an unpleasant mix of dry areas and salination where it's still wet.