Animal Advice Articl
Boomslang in My Lounge
The boomslang lived in the creeper hugging the chimney’s open end, on the roof of High Riding, my late husband’s house in the forested mountain village of Hogsback, South Africa. On sunny days, he or she (yes, there were generations of them) would seek sun in the branches of the wild cherry tree, which grew outside the chimney chute. One hot day – the side sliding door was open – I discovered him (yes, definitely a male: beautifully bright green) behind my pots just outside. I crept stealthily closer, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face, but, alas, I was not stealthy enough and in a single liquid move, the boomslang turned and escaped me – around the corner of the open door, straight into the house! My extensive, open-plan lounge, combining both my own as well as my late husband’s working areas, was filled with half-full boxes of books, beneath the desks, shelves and various little tables – a better place for hiding somewhere was probably nowhere to be found in the entire village! Boomslang are highly venomous, but also quite introverted, so hide he did.
I traipsed through my home, going about my business with cautious alertness. The boomslang, I was convinced, was asking me to experience first-hand the special vigilance of a wild creature. I felt that he did not want to harm me. I only had to be careful not to threaten or provoke him unwittingly in any way.
I have never gone about my doings as gingerly, consciously, and patiently as on that day. I sat outside a lot, thinking, feeling, hoping to see him emerge. By evening, I had to assume that he had made his departure.
A week later, as I opened the curtains of the little window to the right of the hearth mantlepiece, the boomslang was curled up in a fleshy spiral, fast asleep in the golden morning rays baking onto the wooden windowsill. I don’t know who got the bigger fright. I took one respectful leap backwards, realizing in that moment that the two of us had shared the lounge for a good eight days. He had known this, but I had been blissfully unaware. Clearly, I had yet more to learn!
The boomslang, for his part, looked bemused for a split second, then raised his perfect head and glided to the floor in an apologetic manner.
I was at a loss. Again, I opened all the windows and tried to go about my various chores and tasks as if it were completely natural to have a snake as a housemate. I decided to have a bath, in order to allow him space and time to find his way finally back outside, according to his own rhythms. Lying in the water, I ‘chatted’ with him, not out loud, but by means of feeling. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that I silently communed with him. I felt his presence and could feel him feeling mine. Some deep, wordless intelligence beyond language was palpable between us. Unspoken wisdom guided me not to be afraid. I knew the boomslang had stuck around to teach me something vital.
I washed and dressed and returned into the lounge, wondering whether he had finally exited my human abode. I was about to sit down at my desk when I suddenly saw him, handsomely draped over the shutter of the large window my desk looked out through. Again, I instinctively stepped a good distance away, but then dared to take a few photographs. I was utterly in awe of his length and beautiful markings. Then I thought I had better call my neighbor, who was experienced in handling snakes if need be. Derek was completely unfazed. “How good is your boomlangese?” he jested.
“I’m worried that he hasn’t eaten for a week,” I replied, “and might be hungry now.”
“Walk very, very slowly towards him, so as not to frighten him,” Derek advised, “and see if you can open the window shutter to let him out. Boomslang are very shy. They really would rather not attack,” he consoled me.
I did as Derek had recommended, but my boomslang leaped gracefully, with a single, downward gesture of his mighty body, onto the wooden floor, where he wriggled away majestically, concealing himself once more, between a file-filled shelf and the firewood basket.
That’s when I sat myself down for a lengthy spell in the garden outside and composed the poem, Lessons in Hand (which ended up being published in the Ecca Poets book, Staying Hungry) – building on D.H. Lawrence’s experience described in his famous poem, Snake.
Let me like him be feeling
my entire length
a sole – the body one extended foot,
feeding on the Braille
of surfaces …
… I wrote, adding,
Such attunèdness
with earth.
brings healing.
It seemed that I was being given an embodied lesson in understanding Hippocrates’ staff, with its two winding serpents around it and I was grateful to have been given the opportunity to “expiate” the human “pettiness”, which Lawrence laments in Snake.
As day drew to a gradual close, I stepped back into the lounge, to the spot where I had last seen him and noticed that, on that windowsill, shells and stones had been disturbed. Immense gratitude streamed through me. My snake had spoken in his way. He had left a sign to assure me that he had departed the house. Reverently, I closed the shutters and called Derek, to tell him the news.
The next morning, I walked around to the wild cherry tree. In a strange way, I missed my friend. I wanted to see him again, but the tree’s branches either camouflaged him, or he wasn’t there. As I stepped through the long grass, I saw it – a 2 meter long skin, from eyes to tail tip. It felt like a graduation gift, an award. I had passed this test. I had learned a wild thing’s patience.
ilke Heiss is a South African writer, who has published poems, short stories and a verse novel in local literary journals and anthologies since 1991. She co-authored self-published books with her late husband, the poet Norman Morrissey, as well as two solo collections. She is a member of the Ecca Poets and has collaborated on nine books with them to date.