ONE MOMENT IN TIME
A dead snake
lost to art
IN my usual afternoon
walk, I chanced on the
asphalt road a flattened
and very dead snake.
By ALFREDO
'DING' ROCES
I picked it up as one stiff piece for
possible use in one of my assemblage works.
It looked like a green snake, but its
colour had dried where it had lain in the sun
on the asphalt road.
Not fully dried, with a faint foul odour
of death,
I left it in the terrace to dry.
Soon enough, the ants had their feast
all through the following day.
When I next checked on the third day,
the snake had vanished.
I glanced around the garden and saw
this lizard.
It had the totally dried snake in its
mouth.
Didn't think any birds, or that lizard,
could chew on such a hard, dried, skin.
But there it was, making off with my
future artwork. n
ALFREDO ROCES is an artist,
photojournalist, and book author
living in the Sydney suburb
of Davidson; an octogenarian
who in retirement continues
to love life and to capture its
wonder with his paint brush, his
camera, and his words. Roces
has opened his ‘gallery archive’
to AK NewsMagazine for readers
to follow and enjoy each month.
06
APRIL 2018 | AK NewsMagazine, Vol 8 No 7
www.kalatas.com.au