An Appraisal Poem

 

(an appraisal poem, 

as prompted by Robert Lee Brewer)

 

The Year of the Snake sidles in,

all slippy and, well, serpentine—

throwing us curves before

it’s even here, even fêted

with firecrackers and all that hoopla

(fangs, lion dancers, marching bands),

though Fate, writ large, 

is written on its vexèd brow,

those scales not for weighing

but for naying, eyes venomous

as ever was (green, slit; orange of iris

with a black rim)—not comforting

by any means or ways.  Not what 

we need, for sure, or readily invite 

into our saporous grasses, over 

our faithfully sagacious threshhold

of alder, terracotta, tumbled travertine,

time-honored limen 

of welcome, reverence, what once 

could be.  Couldn’t but be.

 

images:  Jeff Beane, Copperhead

Manuel Cohen, Relief, Archaeological Museum of Sparta