Some might say premature but Halloween is a milestone of the year for me.
Ratsnakes (Ode to an Odd Hobby)
The collection of ratsnakes is an obsession of sorts
You house them in gallons, you house them in quarts.
You fill up your basement with racks and with cages
You hoard up newspaper for ages and ages.
You fill up your freezer with rats and with mice
Your postman’s in fear of more burns from dry ice.
Every box or container is measured and tried
To see if it works as a bowl or a hide.
The only new languages you’ll read, write or speak
Are Taxonomy Latin and Taxonomy Greek.
The choices of species are bizarre and confusing.
Just trying to say them is sometimes amusing.
Lineata, prasina, subocularis, dione
Radiata, vulpina and scalaris, hodgsoni.
You'll debate about colors in climac’s and bairdi
Like Opera buffs might with Mozart and Verdi.
You question the bloodlines of locales and morphs
You see hybrids lurking in giants and dwarfs.
You argue on genus and species and subs
Like drunks fighting drunks in their favorite pubs.
Elaphe you say, I claim Pantherophis!
Zamenis they state, We correct Orthriophis!
Friendships are shaken, long threads appear
Trollbait is taken, there’s not much to cheer.
But really it means that the season is done
We’ve run out of photos, we’ve run out of fun.
We’ll have to subsist on the memories we have
And plan for the next year as a sort of a salve.
When once more we’ll thrill to the promise of spring
And snakes will be mating and our herp hearts will sing.
