REQUIEM, CHELYDRA SERPENTINA

REQUIEM, CHELYDRA SERPENTINA*

Requiem for a small snapping turtle*

Not even some flowers of myrtle…

So small, unseen,

It might have been

Larger than Seuss’s “Yertle.”

While tornadoes around  us flew

And people grew fearful too,

It was caught in the door

Where it’s foot became no more…

Dying there but no one knew.

It lay till danger was past

And sensitive souls found it at last…

Too late to be saved

Because of storms to be braved,

It was mourned, and then out-cast.

—Jonathan Caswell

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: *Chelydra serpentina is the scientific name for the American Eastern snapping turtle.)