Greetings, Poetry Lovers!
[First, about last Poetry Friday weekend: apologies if you attempted to visit or leave word at my blog and were stymied. There was some technical issue, and I couldn't even get to it myself! By Monday the Authors Guild techno-gurus had set all to rights again.]
Last week, I and many other PF bloggers seemed smitten with May flowers. Well, with all this warmth and growth and flora comes the fauna, too - perhaps you have also had the expected encounters with snakes and bugs and salamanders and such? They've all been active around here!
The first snake-y encounter this year was when I lifted the lid of our large recycle container outside, and - plop! - a medium-sized garter snake dropped from just inside the lid to the ground. I wouldn't want to give away any family secrets, but I was glad that happened to me, and not to my hubby....
I've seen another snake or two while out and about, in the grass or slithering off into a weedy thicket during early evening walks.
A few weeks ago, I had just returned from a road trip and noticed a package on the front steps of the house. At the top of the steps, I picked up the package and turned around, and that's when I noticed Mr. (Mrs.?) Good-sized Garter Snake, stretched out on the ground the entire length of the steps (four to five feet?) and watching me intently. I must have stepped right over him/her.
Well, Hello there, I said. I was in a wee predicament. We keep the front screen doors locked because they don't close securely otherwise, and we have a teeny doggie who loves her daily porch time. So I was at the top of the steps holding my box, with my new friend taking up all room from one end to the other at the bottom step. Now, as you can tell from the photo, we need to paint the steps, and make some needed outside repairs in general. I was pondering whether to bail and scale the rail (didja like that?) and leap over the side, wondering if all the wood was good! Pondering time abruptly halted when said snake slid its head over the bottom step in a rather pointed motion my direction - eyes on me still and tongue flickering in and out - coming up to get better acquainted. I bailed! All was well.
And time for that wonderful poem by our dear Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), don't you think?
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides -
You may have met him? Did you not
His notice instant is -
The Grass divides as with a Comb,
A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on -
He likes a Boggy Acre -
A Floor too cool for Corn -
But when a Boy and Barefoot
I more than once at Noon
Have passed I thought a Whip Lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone -
Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality
But never met this Fellow
Attended or alone
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.
And continuing the theme, here's a little poem I wrote eight or nine years ago, which made an appearance on Tricia's Miss Rumphius Effect site for a challenge back then:
S
Serpentine S
goes this way and that
Trail in the sand
Tail of a cat
Slithering S
goes that way and this
Starts every snake
Ends every hiss
©Robyn Hood Black
All rights reserved.
Watch your step as you make your way over to Elizabeth Steinglass's place, and be sure to give her lots of high fives celebrating her new book, Soccerverse! (To this day, I can't see a salamander without thinking of the hikes Liz and I took during a Highlights Founders poetry workshop years ago, and all the little red salamanders we saw!)