Fragments From Floyd

They are pretty well done falling--along the driveway, into the high gutters around the house, on the tarps that cover the stacked wood that will warm us through the long, cold nights of winter. Maple leaves by their millions ferment matted, muted, sodden and rotting. And by Sunday, it was time to start collecting them into the back of the truck for the short trip to the garden.

A rounded mound that the rake could not clear away proved to be a flat rock under the leaves, thrown beside the shed for no good reason. I harrumphed as I bent over carefully to prize it up on end to lift and toss it to some other pointless place out of the way. And out of that mundane chore of autumn, in this world of orange and ochre, in that cool, safe space under the flat roof of rock where it would have spent its anonymous days fattening on spiders before winter, a newly-hatched Smooth Green Snake lay coiled in an emerald knot.

On that dreary, misty afternoon of raking away the remains of the long, warm days of another year, I was in one of those morose bogs of sadness that often come at the end of things. But I chanced to turn that one rock and discover all over again that this world is not my home alone; that I share this space with life in its myriad forms I never see, under bark, below ground, floating above me, even living on and in me--and this sudden, verdant insight made all the difference in my autumn goodbyes.

Nature Note: This discovery marks a new record for this species for our county. I've contacted the Virginia Herpetological Society to confirm this, and will be doing the paperwork to submit it for the herp species distribution maps.