Rebecca Pierre- Two Poems

SNAKES

I snip long narrow shoots
from the eleagnus,
curb its constant attempt
to grow wild.  My feet,
in sandals, buried deep
beneath the bush, I think
of snakes.  How a woman I know
broke her wrist digging in
her flower garden.  Thought
she dug up a snake, threw
herself back in panic.
Though she is one of the
faithful, her church does not
practice snake handling or she
would have died years ago,
from heart attack or snake
bite, speaking in tongues
before she left this world,
the wide-eyed congregation
unsure whether to call her
saint or sinner.

I used to pick vegetables
in the early hours, dew
gleaming like emeralds on
leaves beneath the blessing
of a sun not yet hot.
I walked the rows of okra,
peas, beans, in bare feet,
until the day my husband
killed a water moccasin
there.  Is it faith that allows
me to remember this without
fear, to squiggle my toes
beneath this bush? Or the lesson
learned later – that a snake
in the house is more dangerous.

Previously published in my book, A Mystery of Moon and in Aries Anthology 

COUGAR

     John’s Island, SC

Early Sunday morning,

walking to the pond,

suddenly I stop.

Upwind, a cougar,
tawny and sleek,
regal head raised
searching for a scent
on the air.

I think of the leopard

lying in the painting
that hung above
the fireplace in a house
I once called home.
A place I left
like the cougar leaves
gliding through long grass
as if she had never been there.

 

Rebecca Pierre has been writing poetry for more than 25 years. Her poetry has appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Wellspring, Cancer Poetry Project I & II, The Peralta Press, Lullwater Review, Aries Anthology, NCPS Pinesong Awards, Illya’s Honey, Of Frogs and Toads, and Literary Trails of NC among others.