Day 1 Snakes
- me
- Apr 1
- 1 min read
Updated: Apr 6
Lovely prompt with a link to Florentine Codex and art and musical words.
“In the present volume, you have, my friendly reader, a forest with a great variety of mountains, hills, and cliffs, where you will find wild trees of every kind, ferocious beasts, and as many snakes as you may wish for. You have a garden populated by every fruitful tree and by all kinds of plants, where there are springs and rivers of various types…”
Here's my poem:
I wish for more
In the present world, dear Friar Sahugan
I have sought more
snakes than I have found.
I spotted garter snakes sunning
on sidewalks, but no bull
snakes constricting soprano-voiced mice
seeds still in their teeth.
Hours of slipping over sedimentary slopes in the bad
lands, led to dinosaur bones but no rattle
snake sightings or even sound effects.
I suspect, dear Sahugan
your true love lies
in Earthly Things. Your hundreds of illustrations
of beasts and birds.
Did you consider yourself
in the Garden? Were you scared
to focus on the first version’s scoundrel?
Your world’s ending
with the Conquest and new Spain.
I wish for more snakes.
Florentine Codex
From Book 11 Earthly Things Prologue
Spanish-to-English Translation
(García Garagarza 2023)
