Imagining Firelight
And Moonlight
Dancing on Stone Serpent Scales
This Stone Serpent is hundreds of feet long, close to a thousand maybe.
It crosses the little stream in the bowl of a valley...
There's a place along the edge of an outcrop,
Stones stacked along it's edge...
This rhomboidal stone might catch your attention...
If you turn around, facing east,
You'll notice (perhaps) a zigzag line of small stones,
And perhaps you'll notice that as the ten foot segments continue,
That the size of the stones grows larger and larger...
Perhaps you'll notice there are boulders as well in the row of stones,
Sometimes quite triangular...
Here and there are small gaps,
Little breaches in the zigzags...
(You can see the rhomboidal stone on the stone-lined edge of the outcrop in the top left of this photo above, catch a glimpse of the stone zigzag that begins up there...)
Some gaps are larger,
And the boulders are slightly larger...
You may notice that on the opposite incline,
Glimpsed through the trees,
That the zigzag turns into a linear or straight line row of stones...
And if you are me, writing this as the morning birds start calling,
You'll still see this photo below as "a smaller Serpent that makes up the larger Great Serpent,"
But you will also recognize that it may have two solid stone eyes,
And you will wonder, "How did I ever miss that?"
You might look back up the hill,
And as you turn around you might see
Something Serpentine about that zigzag stone feature,
That your field guide says is a rare thing
And evidence of field clearing stones tossed haphazardly against a wooden rail fence,
A Snake Fence, as it is sometimes called...
You might have your imagination with you.
I carry mine with me at all times, where ever I go...
As well as what's left of my memory,
So that I can compare a stone to
a Ceremonial Mask,
Placed just so along a stone row...
Where the stones crossed the water,
I found tangles of those multiflora roses and barberry.
Nobody is taking care of this place,
As far as fires of Renewal Ceremonies goes.
No one tends the garden this landscape was and I wove my way around all the thorns,
Until I could see the other end of the Great Grey Fox Serpent...
I really do have to revisit to confirm what I think I may find there,
That this Great Serpent has, instead of a boulder, a head that is made of stacked stones,
The stones chosen and placed as if to resemble the scales found on the head of
An Eastern Timber Rattlesnake...
So, as I said, I started to imagine a wigwam on the flat piece of ground by the head of the Serpent,
A fire circle nearby
- and now that I think of it -
Maybe more fires all along the length of this stone snake-like "stone wall."- and are there some signs of hearth stones in circles still sitting there?
Would it seem to be moving, as the fire light flicked on those stacked stones?
Wouldn't that be interesting, seeing this in the distance under a full moon's light??
