The Taking
(for my eldest son)

Here's a question your children may pose
although I never thought to ask your Grandfather
“Where in the world are snakes seen
as safe, really?”

Not non-venomous safe
I mean
safely un-killed-on-sight
seen.

Saint Patrick's legacy
supposedly
left a small emerald isle
safely snake-free.
Pity he never managed
to work his magic down under.

But then
here's a skin
shed but unkilled
almost veganly
gracing a fine brim
while retaining
the permanent bright beauty
of an unbloodied underbelly.

No sage sisterly chanting
required to see
this sable upper off.

But another remembered
half-alive enough
for half a dozen hats
lies ferociously trapped
thrumming tension
a coil of sprung steel.

And those really basic concerns for safety
founded in Love’s fear for survival
become the joyless foundation
of a masculinity
as beautifully toxic-tragic
as the fatefully-fatally-flawed fire
of a Red-bellied Black Snake
wounded and wound
in the wheel arch
of your grandfather’s car.

Or that three-metre behemoth
noiselessly night-slipping into camp.
Your big sister scarcely three
your Mother bearing you
close to term.

Two blinding
binding brutalities
intertwining generations
within a roiling cauldron
full of fenny snakes filleted
and the silent tongues of adders
proclaiming the poisoned politics
of patriarchal dominance.

Like my father before me
Love and fear
have driven the taking
of a slithering giant’s life.

Please! Make new mistakes.

Chris Wardle

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Chris Wardle  would like to hear them