Whirlwind 10th Anniversary Edition: Longfellow's Literary Magazine for 2019-2020

Whirlwind
The story I’m about to tell
Is not for the faint of heart
If you don’t like bloody stories
Then you’d better skip this part
This story is of a fateful day
In the mountains south of here
When a toddler saw and looked with
awe
At an innocent creature coiled in fear
Our dad was by the fire
Battling with the smoke
Finn was busy fighting
When my sister Billie spoke
None of us were near her
When she spoke with wonder and fear
She repeated her message louder
So one of us would hear
It was James alone who realized
That one life was at stake
For Danielle was on the move
About to step right on a snake
“Look out” he cried and it seemed
That without him she’d be dead
For underneath her moving foot
There lay a copperhead
The Snake
By Clara M.
Startled we all backed away
Except Danielle did not
She refused to back away until
she managed to get a good shot
We stood from far and watched it
Uncertain and in shock
It was dad who was quick thinking
And hit it with a rock
It seemed the hit had been enough
To kill the copperhead
But suddenly it moved again
We knew it wasn’t dead
Dad took a long thick stick
And pinned it to the ground
Danielle said “use the machete”
But it was nowhere to be found
Finn said he’d go get it
And fetched it from our shed
He returned with it in hand
And hit the snake upon its head
It took him several tries
Hacking as hard as he could
After 5 or 6 we knew
The snake was gone for good
Dad put it on a stick
Spraying blood out on the lawn
The poor thing just hung limply there
It’s head was barely on
He threw it into the woods
And stepped back so we could see
He must have used bad aim because
He’d hung it on tree
It hangs there now as a warning
To all snakes living there
To stay away or else they’d pay
For giving us a scare
Because Danielle would get a picture
And Billie would spot it, James would
yell
Dad would hold the snake in place
As Finn’s machete fell
And what was my part
What did I do?
I’d tell the story
Like I told it to you
Show Me ~Marissa W.
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