Monday, June 20, 2016

A Snail's Journey



Note: In my last post, a sample of the photographs that I took during week 46 of my 366-day photography project, I focused on the world of the garden. Today, I continue to focus on the smaller, more intimate world of the garden. So I will share a somewhat fanciful, not very scientific poem about the land snail that I photographed moving around in a garden this morning.

My shell is my beautiful, opaque world,
a safe haven amidst the weeds and thorns,
where, hidden, I can observe, undisturbed
the wind shaking the branches and the leaves.

Into my swirly shell, daylight floods in.
A creature of the night, I try to sleep.
Maybe I should burrow deep in the ground,
deep into the deliciously soft earth.

Or I could set out on adventure,
finding my way through the darkest jungle,
sailing through storms 'neath the skull and crossbones.
One adventure builds upon another.

But I am here, in this time, in this place,
I look for my own tiny adventure,
Bird songs from the coolness of the river,
the pattering sound of rain on a roof.

I stretch my head out to catch a raindrop
I open my eyes to catch a rainbow.
I feel the warm, nourishing soil, the earth,
as it covers the dead plants of last year.



I see the world, but does the world see me?
A tiny garden snail in a small place.
A small peaceful place of insects and plants.
Full of vivid perennial colors.


4 comments:

Archana said...

A very sensitive point of view! Great 👍

Alana said...

Perhaps, when I saw a toad in my flower beds over the weekend, I should have imagined the toad writing a poem. But instead, I grabbed my iPhone for a picture and - full!! I really need to stop digital photo hoarding and start to write poetry.

Marian Allen said...

What a lovely post! The pictures are beautiful, and the snail's thoughts could be my own, hunkering down in my country house, listening to the rain and smelling the wet earth. :)

Kiril Kundurazieff said...

A lovely poem and a cool collection of images!

Glad to see I am not the only one to be poetically inspired by an encounter with a simple snail. :-D