As the gods began one world, and man another, <br />So the snakecharmer begins a snaky sphere <br />With moon-eye, mouth-pipe, He pipes. Pipes green. Pipes water. <br /> <br />Pipes water green until green waters waver <br />With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings. <br />And as his notes twine green, the green river <br /> <br />Shapes its images around his sons. <br />He pipes a place to stand on, but no rocks, <br />No floor: a wave of flickering grass tongues <br /> <br />Supports his foot. He pipes a world of snakes, <br />Of sways and coilings, from the snake-rooted bottom <br />Of his mind. And now nothing but snakes <br />Is visible. The snake-scales have become <br />Leaf, become eyelid; snake-bodies, bough, breast <br />Of tree and human. And he within this snakedom <br /> <br />Rules the writhings which make manifest <br />His snakehood and his might with pliant tunes <br />From his thin pipe. Out of this green nest <br /> <br />As out of Eden's navel twist the lines <br />Of snaky generations: let there be snakes! <br />And snakes there were, are, will be--till yawns <br /> <br />Consume this pipe and he tires of music <br />And pipes the world back to the simple fabric <br />Of snake-warp, snake-weft. Pipes the cloth of snakes <br /> <br />To a melting of green waters, till no snake <br />Shows its head, and those green waters back to <br />Water, to green, to nothing like a snake. <br />Puts up his pipe, and lids his moony eye.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/snakecharmer/
