HOLDING THE PYTHON: TO PERSONA OR NOT TO PERSONA?

This poem grew out of my experience of trying to hold a python, encouraged by a ranger at the Nature Center at Devil's Punchbowl, a wonderful echo-y place inland of Los Angeles.


What people think they know about a python is how very strong it is. It takes experience to realize just how immense this strength is, and how much it weighs (it's all muscle).  There was no way I could "hold" the python. It threaded itself through my grasp and began to calmly flow onto the ground, which gave me the impression of his trying to return to the earth.  

Holding the Python

I thought he’d hang slack,

but he flowed through my hands,

a body made of motion,

a darkness leaning to enter

the leafwork of shadows –

I felt his colossal strength

pour into me, the progressive

diamond along the center.

I had to follow, I had to flow into earth:

liquid animal, unending arrival –


                            ~ Oriana


**


This poem has existed in other versions, including quatrains, tercets, and couplets. Here is the tercet version:

Holding the Python

I don’t know if his earth eyes

saw me, or just branches

of arms and back –

I thought he’d hang

slack, but he flowed

through my hands: a body

made of motion,

a darkness leaning to enter

the leafmold of shadows –

I felt his colossal strength

pour itself into me,

the progressive

diamond along the center.

I had to follow,

I had to flow

into earth –

liquid animal,

unending arrival –


   ~ Oriana

**

Eventually I tried a persona version as part of my Eurydice sequence (my Eurydice is not passive, but a woman struggling to become an artist, after slowly understanding that every man will betray her, or at least disappoint her).  I admit that this version appeals to me greatly. It's the only animal persona poem I have ever written. 

Serpent/Eurydice

She wondered if my earth eyes

saw her, or just branches

of arms and back –

draped around her bones,

believed I’d hang slack, 

but I flowed through her hands, 

a body made of motion,

a darkness leaning to enter

the leafmold of shadows –

She felt my renewing strength

pour into her, the progressive

diamond along the center –

She had to follow,

she had to flow into earth:

fluent soul, unending arrival –

           ~ Oriana

**

Only one friend likes this version best.  


Ultimately, I realized that this poem will probably never have its "inevitable" version. Rather, it has its own infinitude.  It's best to abandon it, to let it continue being its unending arrival whenever I rediscover it.  


Hyacinth:
I have treasured this one for a long time and prefer the longer lines.  The photo of the python entwined with the woman is amazing and a little frightening. I knew a man whose wife kept a pet python and sometimes he'd come home from work and have to disentangle her.


Oriana:
I admit the longer lines bring out the alliterations:

I felt his colossal strength

pour into me, the progressive

diamond along the center.

I had to follow, I had to flow into earth:

liquid animal, unending arrival –

**