-early morning geology, or how I found a garden snake

and why that discovery had more to do with me than it did the snake-

It was easy enough to slide away

the pillow-sized rock

to see what, if anything was scurrying

across the concave, dark and dank

soil beneath it— that underworld

which belongs beneath rocks.

that's the purpose of rocks, regurgitated

from the icy mouth of the Laurentide sheet––

to lay there, and hide things, and shut-up about it, and outlive me.

this time, it's the little green garden snake,

more worm than snake who showed-up, bending it’s mild length,

too small to coil tightly, near timid––

and I wondered what it was doing under there;

a shelter perhaps. protection from predators, or waiting

for me to come by to push away the stone, to offer an option.

the little green garden snake appears to be uninformed,

but it knows something of its presence, prepped by a silent

instinct to make its house beneath the belly of the rock.

maybe this is what God sees as it looks down at me, curious

of the way I go about doing the things I do while it considers

my motives for its adjudication. who knows?

well––  little green garden snake, you have my attention.

...now what?