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Personal Note:
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Poem


In the fifties
it was the suburban icon
that survived the start 
of the renovation phase
and still graced the backyards 
of most houses in the neighborhood,
the ubiquitous Australian 
outside dunny.

Ours was a corrugated iron
oven that cooked you in the summer
and would freeze even the most proud
member down to a modest size 
in winter. Daddy long leg spiders
would watch from the walls and ceiling 
and bounce about in their webs
when the chain on the overhead
cistern was pulled
and water gushed out.

One hot summer's day my Dad
was sitting on the loo 
with the door open and saw
a snake crawl across the lawn.
Up with his trousers he pursued
the snake until it slid into
the shade house, grabbing it 
by the tail as it slipped through
the wire netting fence.

For an hour he called out
hoping someone would hear 
and help him deal with the snake.
Back then there were no
snake catchers you could call,
you either killed it or let it go 
and worried whether 
it would come back.

Finally our neighbor, Jim Ireland,
came running in armed 
with an axe and as Dad slowly
pulled it back out,
dealt the reptile a fatal blow.
When I came home from school
that day, there was this four foot
brown hanging on the clothesline 
almost cut in half.  

It seemed too small to pack
such danger, its jaws sealed shut 
in death over those lethal fangs. 
I couldn't bring myself to touch it 
in fear that it might spring back 
and bite me in a final revenge.
That year, my Dad kept
the dunny door open 
all summer. He never saw
another snake. I should have been 
a better son.


Notes.
Though rather obvious, the term
“dunny” refers to an outside toilet,
a good old Australian colloquialism.

It's rare to find snakes in suburban
backyards these days unless near
open areas and waterways. 
As a matter of interest, the snake
referred to in the poem was
an “Eastern Brown” whose venom
is rated as the second most toxic
in the world, the most toxic being
the Inland Taipan another Australian
species.
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