THE NATURAL ORDER OF THINGS
David E. Cowen
Carl’s father first saw him,
walking down by the old creek the Corps
had carved around to create Beuscher Lake;
clover and lichen spreading from the brief sides
of the twisting canal
to the edge of the water,
slowly filling in the hole.
We could see him jump back
as if something had intruded on his morning constitutional;
he ran back toward us,
something in the grass ran away from him.
Carl’s father gathered his tribe:
his four sons, myself and a neighbor’s husband;
a thin man with round glasses and a neatly pressed oxford.
We reconnoitered near the creek bed,
complimenting each other on the tread marks
from our sneakers imprinting the dew-soaked ground.
“He’s in the brush pile,” someone said.
We soft-stepped toward the mound of gray logs
covered with fungus and twigs;
thinking its existence was somehow natural,
part of the order of things;
unaware of the chain scars on the wood,
and the cries of uncertain loons
circling for a place to land
on the emerging lake.
The neighbor took a lighter to a twig
poking it into the scrub;
the heat and light began to rise
against the early wind;
the snake sought its escape.
We heard the rattle as it moved
in the heart-shaped green leaves of the clover;
almost graceful.
We were ancient hunters,
grabbing for broken branches
like pulling the bones from a bleached carcass,
and beat on the ground.
The snake did not recoil
or seek retribution for the blows;
it just kept running,
until finally a lucky blow on the skull
ended its flight.
Carl’s dad got out an oversized pickle jar,
like those the cafeteria ladies
take home to store their sewing scraps;
coiling it into the glass;
its flattened, sneering mouth resting on folds of broken skin.
“It’s a good thing we killed it,” he said,
holding up the diamond scaled fangs,
“you never know who it might have hurt.”
We nodded in agreement, trying to stoke the futile flames,
of a smoking stub of wood in a ring of rocks,
as a light, but steady drizzle began to wet our clothes;
another contribution to the half-born lake;
a group of white loons swiming uncomfortably
in the shallow water.
