Asclepius

 
I was given to the earth  
through an umbilical cord.    
I held it in my hand for the feeling...    
 
The snake belonged to me  
as per God's longing,  
and he was my only companion.      
 
I didn't like the snake much;  
I couldn't understand him  
because he refused to speak.    
 
The snake was a trickster,  
he would get me into  
situations with his trance,  
and then just hiss,  
slither off, and laugh at me.    
Seemingly as I was  
his entertainment.    
 
I would get angry  
and call him ugly,  
and only a stupid serpent  
with no understanding.  
 
But me & the snake would  
go everywhere  
together, regardless.    
 
We sat many a long whiles  
eating bullfrog & sugarcane,  
and during the moon rise  
we would go fishing.  
 
But never a word he  
would utter for me.  
 
One day we traveled  
out of the deep jungle,    
rafted up the coast,  
and then found ourselves  
roaming through the open savanna.    
 
A tree was standing on a small hillside.  
In a long trance, I found myself  
leaning there and resting.  
 
I had been leaning on the tree  
a long time when I saw them,  
My sweat was cooling as I felt  
the wind sweeping down  
throughout the valley below.    
 
The beautiful valley below;  
filled with fragrant grasses  
and sun of red & gold flowing  
in from all the angles.    
 
I saw then a group of tribesmen.    
There was about five of them.    
They were all stopped  
in the middle of the waves of grain,  
in a circle, looking at something  
that was centered between them  
that one was holding.  
 
Intriguing, I thought, wandering  
toward them I noticed that it  
was simply a book they were holding.    
 
They were all looking at it,  
confused, I thought.    
And they were pointing in it.  
 
They noticed me walking up,  
and as they turned toward me,  
they opened up and let me in  
their circle to get a better look.  
Finally, I looked inside to see  
what they had been reading.    
 
But the book was upside down.    
I started turning it up  
trying to explain to them,  
that I turned the book over    
so they could read it correctly.    
 
It was upside down,  
I was trying to tell them,  
but they just kept  
turning the book back over  
and all looking at it  
in amazement, and chattering  
to each other in thier native tongue.    
 
Pointing at the words  
with thier fingers  
roaming aimless over the vellum.    
 
 
I knew pretty quicky that  
it was pointless to try and help.    
They were happy people,    
and they went back walking on  
through the savanna.    
 
 
I was irritated and back up  
at the bushwillow in an instant  
where the snake had been watching,  
and was again laughing.    
 
I got angry at the snake.    
I felt he was the cause of it.  
 
Tired of his trickery,  
I pulled him down from the tree  
where we had been resting.  
I said come on snake,  
you’re coming with me,  
and soon enough snake,  
you're going to start talking.    
 
But as I was carrying him  
up along the rocks,  
confident that I was going  
to get him talking,  in stumbling  
I dropped the snake,  
and he bit me on my ankle by accident.    
 
I felt the venom flowing  
in an instant up through me,  
up through my leg,  
and up through my torso  
going deep into to my heart.    
Suddenly, I saw snake for what  
he was for the first time ever,  
and everything looked different  
as the venom reached my retinas.    
 
 
He was the patchwork of every  
color imaginable flowing within me.    
He was gorgeous, the snake was.    
 
Finally I could see.    
He was my desire.    
He was my pain.    
He was my ugliness.    
He was my beauty.    
He was my healing.    
 
I was given to the earth  
through an umbilical cord.    
I held it in my hand for the feeling,  
and I protected it  
for the remainder of the centuries...