Garter Snake
The stately ripple of a garter snake
in sinuous procession through the grass
compelled my eye. It stopped and held its head
high above the lawn, and the delicate curve
of its slender body formed the letter S—
for “serpent,” I presume, as though
diminutive majesty obliged embodiment.
The garter snake reminded me of those
cartouches where the figure of a snake
seems to suggest the presence of a god,
until more flickering than any god
the small snake gathered glidingly and slid,
but with such cadence to its rapt advance
that when it stopped once more to raise its head
it was stiller than the stillest mineral,
and when it moved again it moved the way
a curl of water slips along a stone
or like the ardent progress of a tear
till deeper still it gave the rubbled grass
and the dull hollows where its ripples ran
lithe scintillas of exuberance,
moving the way a chance felicity
silvers the whole attention of the mind.
by Eric Ormsby
from For a Modest God
Grove Press, 1997