IT HAPPENED AGAIN

About 6:00 p.m. this evening, I met this narrow fellow* not "in the grass" but descending the stairs. I believe he is the same Southern Water Snake (Mangrove race, the Nerodia fasciata of the Colubrid Snake Family) I met as I climbed the stairs about 10 days ago, shortly after Mrs. Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus, Wren Family) laid three lovely eggs in the nest she and Mr. C. Wren had built in the planter full of spider plants opposite the front door. This poor couple has had a time of it: first, they built a nest downstairs and I, not knowing it was in the wooden cube I picked up, managed to dump the entire nest onto the ground. They probably thought they'd be safer upstairs, so days later they were weaving back and forth with bits of pine needles and pieces of string. I meant to give them a wide berth, but the first time I dared look into the nest, poor Mrs. Wren flew straight up into my face, frightening me and probably herself. I have not seen the birds since.

A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

*See more about Emily Dickinson and her poetry at http://www.online-literature.com/dickinson/

Besides this narrow fellow on the stairs, another party for the book happened last Friday night, in Madison, FL, that lovely southern town with handsome courthouse, 19th century mansions, three rivers nearby and many first magnitude springs, The "Four Freedoms Monument" commissioned by FDR to commemorate the death of Madison's Capt. Colin P. Kelly, the first hero of World War I, and the building right off the square that houses Janet Moses & Co. where 70 people turned up for a reading so congenial, so warm, I felt we were dancing. (See more of Madison at http://www.madisoncountyfl.com/county-information.aspx) We were serenaded with Florida folk songs from the Willinghams of Jasper, FL, the food was ambrosial, and our conversations lasted hours after I'd finished presenting SOUTHERN COMFORTS: Rooted in a Florida Place. Lastly, here is my B&B hostess, Rae Pike, showing off her replica Confederate dress jacket.