Fertility Rite at Brush Creek

We sat in the overlook above the Serpent Mound
in the heat of that garish July afternoon,
sunlight scorching our pallid skin,
like rays through a magnifying glass,
till we could endure no more and
sought the shroud of skyscraper elms ---
halfway houses of leaf, bark and cellulose.
Minutes before we'd signed our names in the visitors book,
like giddy high-schoolers autographing a yearbook,
recording our wayward lover's sojourn
to a site the Hopewell worshipped in celebration of existence.

For what purpose do we worship this ground?
I wondered as we walked beside the curving icon,
that undulated in rolled earthen coils down the slope,
sine-waves loosed from a colossal oscilloscope.
Are these coils symbolic of our future's meandering relationship?
Her exploring hand upon my butt
drew me from thought to evaluation of this unexpected caress.
But for the heat, I'd have shown her what idle foreplay begets!
Great Serpent, this was not Eden's carnal karma
acted out in a second Genesis! ---
though a symbolic egg spews from your mouth.




Poetry by Brian Oarr
Read 500 times
Written on 2011-10-12 at 13:04

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I love this!
I hadn't heard of the Serpent Mound before, so I've just read about it on Wikipedia. Very intriguing! And this piece captures my imagination completely, each line a coil of a lovers' journey until the egg that represents not an end but a beginning.
Applause!
2011-10-12