“There is one story
and one story only
That will prove
worth your telling….
…of the undying snake
from chaos hatched,
Whose coils contain the ocean,
Into whose chops
with naked sword he springs,
Then in black water,
tangled by the reeds,
Battles three days and nights,
To be spewed up
beside her scalloped shore….”
— Robert Graves,
“To Juan at the Winter Solstice”