Corn Snake

Corn Snake Coiled in the path, a shining astonishment. The dogs bark furiously and for a moment all creation surrounds this bright singularity, gleaming eyes cheap as Indian beads, markings as sinuously symmetric as loops scribed on an ancient potshard. Certainly a harmless, useful creature, and yet.... A forked tongue flicks and the heart stops. The ape-thing awakens, that slouching hater of all that slither and scurry low upon the Earth. Is there some meaning to this old loathing? The wind stirs the pines, but signifies nothing. The sky is blank and the world is mute. The old answer seems as good as any -- the serpent, the woman, the tree, the fruit.