Brian Turner

And you see one.

And in my mind, I immediately associate with cobras.

So I remember thinking, well, if they're here, there must be a reason.

Yeah.

So that was partly in the back of my mind as just part of the visual environment, the actual environment of the place.

But it's interesting that I...

That I saw this, you know, I wrote this poem two or three days after Private Melod committed suicide.

And so it's still very fresh when I was writing this.

And it wasn't, this wasn't some, something I went back and I thought about different creatures that were there and the symbolism of it.

I think the subconscious is doing its work.

Now I look at it in the way I read it in terms of symbols is a mongoose, which is something that wards away the danger.

But the mongoose pauses under the orange trees, and orange goes right back to where you had said, this brass and fire in the mouth, this bright round sort of symbol of fruit, which is what the mongoose pauses under.

So it echoes in a majestic way back with what had just happened.

Yes, yes.

Right.

And so I think as writers, for me, this poem is teaching me that I can listen to the world and that it will teach me.

I don't always have to impose myself on the poem and try to force symbolism in there.

The world will find its way to express itself.

You're sleeping on a foam mat or a sleeping bag.

And it's a very... You don't know... We didn't have a schedule.