Tag: snakes

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.

~Emily Dickinson

This is one of my favorites. If you don’t like snakes, consider yourself warned: snake stories follow.

My most recent snaky encounters were at the beach, if you don’t count the five-foot blacksnake skin festooned through our shed last week. On a nature trail at the Outer Banks, coming back along the path through a marshy area one afternoon, a rustle of movement in the grass caught my son’s and husband’s attention. A long, thick fellow was riding through the scrubby undergrowth. We couldn’t identify him, despite the interesting markings on his back, and thus weren’t too keen to get close. We tried to snap pictures for later identification, but still haven’t succeeded in figuring out exactly who he was.

We were headed back toward the car, content with our excitement for the day, when something rustled on the other side of the path, about ten yards or so from the first fellow. It was another indeterminate brown snake, smaller than the first but rather lively and not inclined to welcome visitors. As best we can determine, this was a water snake of some sort, but again, we weren’t terribly interested in snuggling up to discuss with him the finer points of his taxonomy.

Earlier this summer, we were at a cookout with friends and family. Everyone had eaten all the burgers and s’mores they could stand, and twilight was falling thick around us. Evening is typicaly not a snaky time, so the sudden movement in the gloaming grass didn’t immediately clue me in. It came closer, and I realized a small snake was headed right for me in the dark. As I hollered “Snake!!” and everyone crowded around (we are the kind of people who usually run toward snakes), the snake decided to curl up on the apparent safety of my right shoe. It was a milk snake–a really lovely little being–normally very docile, but camera shy. As the lights came on, the snake on my right shoe, failing to associate its safe haven with the nearly identical object next to it, attacked my left shoe. So I got bit by a snake this summer, but in the best possible way.

Other snaky encounters this summer have included repeated visits from a large blacksnake who insists on getting tangled up in netting in the neighboring garden, and who must periodically be untangled and released with gentle hands and stern warnings. It’s been a good summer for snakes. I’m still waiting for the magical teensy-tinsy ringneck snakes who like to bask on our warm carport cement on a summer evening.

Even though I happen to be one of the people who loves and appreciates snakes, Dickinson is absolutely spot-on in her description of encountering them unexpectedly. Whenever I am out berry-picking and a sudden rustle in the grass draws my eye to the flicker of a disappearing scaly tail, the first words that jump into my mind are the last ones of this poem–“Zero at the Bone.”