Snakes and things

Researchers are trying to pinpoint the animal origin of this latest flu outbreak. I read this morning that it appears to have started in bats and then moved to snakes.  Snakes eat bats, and snakes are a delicacy in parts of Asia.

I suppose it's all relative. A live lobster in a restaurant tank isn't exactly a pretty sight, but for most people it doesn't evoke the same feelings. They say that humans evolved with an innate fear of snakes as a survival mechanism, which could explain why snakes are the most common phobia. No cute snake picture this morning-- this flu is scary enough.


To a Snake
by Jeffery Harrison

I knew you were not poisonous
when I saw you in the side garden;
even your name—milk snake—
sounds harmless, and yet your pattern
of copper splotches outlined in black
frightened me, and the way you were
curled in loops; and it offended me
that you were so close to the house
and clearly living underneath it
if not inside, in the cellar, where I
have found your torn shed skins.

You must have been frightened too
when I caught you in the webbing
of the lacrosse stick and flung you
into the woods, where you landed
dangling from a vine-covered branch,
shamelessly twisted. Now I
am the one who is ashamed, unable
to untangle my feelings,
braided into my DNA or buried
deep in the part of my brain
that is most like yours.