I have dreamt about snakes since I can remember. More so than the memory of when they began, I can recall first noticing the pattern of having them. Every snake dream I’ve ever had has been different, all equally frightening. Stepping into this post from the last, I spent a couple of days thinking about the ease I’d written with about the serpent in the garden of Eden.
I am very afraid of snakes, not in a debilitating way, but more so than most people. It is a fear I’ve spent years being curious about. Logically I understand the duty of the black snake, the harmlessness of the rat snake, and the friendliness of the garter. However, emotionally there is no reconciling the blood rush I get in one’s presence.
I wonder where this fear comes from, if it’s because I can remember my mother screaming from the basement over seeing a 6 foot long black snake scaling the wall behind the washing machine. I was only 4 years old. Or the survival instinct passed down in our genes to keep us away from copperheads. Maybe it’s a deeply divine lesson intended to keep us away from the forbidden fruit. Either way there is no wondering over the realness of my fear. Even sitting here to type these words and thinking of snakes in such detail compels me to lift my feet up and cross my legs in the chair.
A resent trip to visit friends, however, inspired me to reclaim the fear by writing about snakes. Four of us were taking a sunset walk through their field and around the barn to see the freshly cut property. There was a horse skeleton beneath the blackberry bushes we might catch a glimpse of. I, in my wondering childlike ways, asked them “how often do y’all see snakes around here?” Our friend Jeff answered “in 6 years I may have seen two, we really don’t come across them the way you’d think.”
As if me asking that question had conjured the devil himself, there stretched out before us in fresh cut grass was a black snake. My husband had nearly stepped over it, I was right behind him. The memory is a bit fuzzy, I remember getting tunnel vision, and fighting the urge to run. Jeff’s wife, in her sequined Chuck Taylor tennis shoes says “now wait a minute, let me see about.”
She reached down, grabbed the beast by its tail and held it up, her arm stretched above her head to show its length. My husband laughed in splendid surprise at her courage, Jeff and I screamed in horror. It flipped itself loose, and as it landed coiled itself up, and reared back its head to strike. I was depending on my body to take in just the right amount of oxygen to keep from fainting.
In spite of its threat she reached for it again, lifted its body, and sent it sailing towards the creek. “It’s gone” she said coolly.
I called it “black snake on state highway 986.” And wrote a fitting ode to the creature we had encountered. Then I thought, what if every time I endured one of these frightful encounters, I got a poem out of it. An idea, born. Quickly I realized this would be easier said than done, was I willing to wade creeks and tall grass for a muse?
Weeks later I went to a bluegrass festival in Greenup county, and driving towards Greenbo I got to thinking about Jesse Stuart, his beloved tale of Old Ben, the black snake. I got to feeling brave and curious, “maybe I’ll get a snake poem out of today.” Not remembering my crippling fear.
I did see a snake that day, a ring neck snake, slithering perfect s shapes into the grass below my feet. No one else saw it, but I believed my own eyes and thought maybe I had the power to bring snakes into my world at will. Another poem.
If I could bring these snakes into my own works of art, then I decided I could do the same for the snakes that come to me in dreams. Take a nightmare and turn it into a chance for words, my words.
In my dream I found myself standing close to a wide and muddy river. I thought about walking towards the river, going knee deep to feel its temperament.
For some reason I decided not to go.
Then some men came to cut the grass around the river’s shore. They toppled from their tall truck and fired up simple motors for the job. Before they could spread out an impossibly large snake emerged from a hidden place in the grass along the edge of the water. Quickly, it wrapped itself perfectly around a man, exposing only his head. He didn’t even have time to scream, his mouth opened wide but no sound came.
Suddenly, like a picture frozen in time, everything in my view went to black and white. I backed away with a steady gate and found a bridge to escape the deadly scene. I climbed up high, stood in the middle of the bridge and supported by its steele I looked straight down into the water. The sun’s rays revealed the bottom and I saw more snakes, even bigger ones trolling below the surface. Standing there I watched them sliver against the floor of that river and I knew that I was safe. I recalled the want I’d had for that water, and felt like somehow my life had been spared.
Thank you for reading this daring post, and as always please reach out because I DO love to chat!
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