The Snake is Dead!

A few weeks ago, my family and some friends went on a float trip on the Smith River. While stopping for lunch, we had an experience worthy of an allegorical poem.

The Snake is Dead! 8/12/2010
We killed the deadly rattlesnake!
The snake is dead!
With stones and wood
We crushed the serpent's fearsome head.

We stopped the boats along the bank,
And in the trees
And garden grass
We saw a sight that made us freeze.

A mighty serpent waited there.
From off the ground
We gathered stones
And on the snake we cast them down.

Trapped between a curse and death,
'Twixt fire and flood
And thirty stones
Upon the fateful Field of Blood.

Though once the king of his domain,
The serpent cowered,
No more disguised
By branches bent, fruit-filled and flowered.

My father took a mighty rod,
Though roodly hewn,
From off a tree
And on the ground so haply strewn,

It was our help in time of need.
Straight and true
He swung it down
And with it, rent the air in two.

And darkness wrapped the day in night,
But only for
The eyes of him
Who's head was crushed forevermore.

The sun shone red upon the water
Flowing by,
As if to spread
The word to every dragonfly.

The stone that held the serpent down
We rolled with dread
And saw the truth:
The snake was dead. The snake was dead!

With joy we ventured back again
To eat the feast
For which we'd hoped
Before we stayed our journey east.

On bread and meat we laughed and drank.
We ate with zeal
And love and life
As if it were a wedding meal.