04-16-2024, 06:17 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-16-2024, 06:52 AM by TranquillityBase.)
It was a mile to get to the pond
following the white rock lake shore
then tracing it around,
to the beginning of the first slough.
A few hundred yards above
through rocky fields of wildflowers
an old oak stood over a pond fed by a spring.
A rattlesnake lay beside the pond
next to the small waterfall.
We studied each other,
he with what serpent wisdom
I can only guess at,
and did not move.
I maintained the certainty
we were not enemies.
And so we sat until I felt
I’d exhausted my welcome
and moved away.
I never met him again,
though the pond was a weekly visit.
By now, his land is destroyed,
his future generations, stamped out.
But something in that meeting
has held my attention
for half a century.
following the white rock lake shore
then tracing it around,
to the beginning of the first slough.
A few hundred yards above
through rocky fields of wildflowers
an old oak stood over a pond fed by a spring.
A rattlesnake lay beside the pond
next to the small waterfall.
We studied each other,
he with what serpent wisdom
I can only guess at,
and did not move.
I maintained the certainty
we were not enemies.
And so we sat until I felt
I’d exhausted my welcome
and moved away.
I never met him again,
though the pond was a weekly visit.
By now, his land is destroyed,
his future generations, stamped out.
But something in that meeting
has held my attention
for half a century.