Petrus Spronk
Summer time. Snake time. So far I have only seen one snake. And there it was. Passing me by, suspended in the sky. “In the sky?” you say. “A flying snake?” you say. “Have you been indulging in that weed again?”
No, this was for real. A flying snake, frantically writhing, writing the capital letter S up there in the blue sky. An alive letter S. The letter S for “safely” as held in the claws of a biggish black bird. A raven maybe. In any case a pretty big bird.
At times like this, when making a memory, you live intensely in the moment – a moment which came and disappeared swiftly behind the tree line to its fate. A fate I could only guess at. Most probably taken high up in the sky, dropped, and thus became dinner for the bird. “Shit”, was the last thing the snake managed to whisper, before it plummeted to the ground. Plummeted to its death.
They arrive uninvited and with a suddenness which always and again makes your heart spin. “Where does she go in the cold season?” I think to myself. Maybe she has found shelter in the yard, or spends time in her studio, designing new dress patterns and, as usual, she comes up with more than one stunning design -the design which intensifies when the snake moves about.
It is then that we miss watching and observing because when the snake starts to move she probably doesn’t stop until she feels safe, which means out of danger or into attack mode.
It’s wonderful also to see her slithering over clear ground. Especially up a sand dune when she leaves an intricate drawing in her wake. Or watching her swim, her tiny head above the water, she leaves another pattern in her wake, especially when she swims across a windless and ripple-free expanse of water – when it appears as if she is swimming through a liquid mirror. Beauty, masking its, at times, dangerous ways.
It’s snake time in the valley. That fearsome slitherer is back for another season to show off her collection of exquisite geometric patterns, delighting those who are attracted and freaking out those who do not understand her ways.
They arrive uninvited and with a suddenness which always and again makes your heart skip a beat.
So, don’t respond with the thought of “kill it”. Instead be still and observe a moment of magic and beauty and be grateful that we live with forest animals. There are many people who have never ever seen an animal in the wild.
How lucky are we.
Petrus Spronk is a local author and artist who writes a monthly column for The Wombat Post.
