A CREEP'S CONFESSION
This cobra creeps before thy face,
Great God, from my safe night-time place,
My basket home,
My Muslim fakir master snores
Exhausted from his daily chores,
And I can roam.
A darkness animal am I,
Awake all night, so that is why
I snooze by day,
And when I hear him tune his flute
I come out dreaming, charmed and cute
And start to sway.
But, Holy God, I feel the need
To now confess my phony creed:
It's all an act!
We both know people won't be harmed:
I'm half asleep, I'm hardly " charmed!"
That is our pact.
It isn't his flute's melody!
His swaying hypnotizes me
To bend and roll,
I'm seldom in a biting mood,
And never learned to chew my food.
(I eat it whole. . .
. . .the way my cousin pythons
may:
We first will paralyze our
prey,
Then
take it in
By just unhooking both our
jaws
Then swallow it -- head,
tail and paws:
Bones,
meat and skin.)
So now that I've confessed my lie,
I pray we are a snake and guy
That you'll redeem,
And any karma we have earned
Will from our souls be cleanly burned,
Our fondest dream.
from the forthcoming book Prayers of 100 Animals A to Z, by William Cleary
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