0366 Poem As Snake, Poem As Not-Snake Poem by Michael Shepherd

Walking the narrow, stepped path that bends
through our local sub-tropical,
magical landfall, full of strangeness,
there it was
across the path,
brownish, yellow and green markings,
waiting

adrenalin poured through the body,
waking instinct, emotion, thoughts;
possible next moves racing manifold through the mind,
uncertainties, no previous experience
of quite this situation to rely on
in our relatively snake-free neighbourhood
and it was big;
the body froze,
the eyes just looked

at the branch, covered in
green moss, yellow lichen,
brown and almost weightless with rot
so that the storm had tossed it
onto the path, into my path,
indifferent, innocuous,
so much so that as the body
restored to equilibrium
I was beyond kicking it aside -
in some sort of embarrassed respect;

it, unaffected by all I brought to it;
like a poem