Sssnake!<\/p>\n
Hissing, spitting, rearing his hoods,
\nThe five-headed snake held sway
\nOver the Yamuna River long ago
\nSo the legends of Krishna say.<\/p>\n
Poisoning the waters, killing all
\nWho chanced to come that way,
\nMaking life a misery for
\nThe cowherds who had long lived there.<\/p>\n
Krishna, the young boy, climbed up a tree
\nWhose branches stretched over the water
\nAnd, avoiding the forked tongues,
\non that snake’s head,
\nHe jumped, shouting with laughter.<\/p>\n
The people watched aghast as he danced
\nFirst on one head, then another.
\nThe snake had by then, used up his venom in vain,
\nAnd to the river ran Krishna’s mother.<\/p>\n
The diluted poison was carried downstream
\nAnd the snake fled away to the sea.
\nWhen his friends asked why Krishna
\nHad let the monster go free,<\/p>\n
He replied, “Well, he didn’t mean any harm
\nHe was just following his destiny.
\nIf he’d been deliberately vicious,
\nIt’d have been another story.”<\/p>\n
Men lived much closer to nature then
\nAnd all life was highly valued,
\nNow we’re focussed only on our goals
\nAbout interdependent life, we’ve no clue!<\/p>\n
The world depends on symbiosis
\nAll earthly life is interlinked
\nThe disappearance of a single species
\nCould lead to a domino effect…
\nAnd all life become extinct!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sssnake! Hissing, spitting, rearing his hoods, The five-headed snake held sway Over the Yamuna River long ago So the legends of Krishna say. Poisoning the waters, killing all Who chanced to come that way, Making life a misery for The cowherds who had long lived…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2849,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1136],"tags":[4909,5474,1046,3158],"class_list":["post-118975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-official-marathon-prompts","tag-2022halfmarathon","tag-mythical-monster","tag-prompt-17","tag-prompt17"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2849"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119005,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118975\/revisions\/119005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}