snake: to drink there

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Like today—a hot, sultry day in July—the black rat snake slowly worked its way down the slope, through the forest, over the rocks to drink from LeConte Creek south of Gatlinburg, my home town. Its movements were cautious, but deliberate.


I won't say slither, there was far too much grace in its movements.

Did it know the creek was there? Could it smell it? Sense it? Or was it doing it from memory? Or like any good outdoors-person, know that if you travel down hill, you eventually find water.

It prompted me to think of the 1923 poem by D. H. Lawrence. It also takes place in July, but on the other side of the world.

 I first read the poem in college, and perhaps, just perhaps, it was the first place I learned to truly respect, even admire snakes. After all, they were not here to harm me, but rather to peacefully coexist.

“A snake came to my water-trough

On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,

To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree

I came down the steps with my pitcher

And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me."

In the deep, strange-scented shade. Wow. That's a poet.

-For the complete poem go to Snake.

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