As I depart your world I’ll leave you
With one last bit of advice:
 When you decide to bury it, 
Dear,
Be sure to place it well below
The surface.

After all…
I wouldn’t want you trip on the handle
As you are prone to do.
Giving cause to raise an alarm,
Like flags, 
To mark the past 
So carefully left to wave;
Like landmarks,
Nonchalantly
Beckoning the way.

Here!  An injustice!
And here!  A slight!
Some phantom malignancies,
A well placed eulogy to spite.

The ground is pregnant with lead,
A wooden cross for every wrong,
And above your hatchet field still hangs
My unheeded repentant song.

Ten more claws than ears, I’m afraid,
Yet I am not without the blame.
Too many times I lingered here, lost.
How easily the ground gives way. 

Now in the distance, a bell tolls merrily
To mark my death 
And your happiness…
All games are called to cease

Consider your lesson taught
I’ll circumvent your plot
And kindly I will tip my hat to you
For letting me pass through.

Released from loyalty
I transcend, 
But not without my final plea:

Bury it deep this time,
Dear.
I’ll not stand in your way.
But if a change in the wind
Should fell you again,
You’ll not have me to blame.

Above her head, They hung it – a beautiful ornament of brass, hammered and polished into a perfect circle, turning slowly in the sun light on a spider’s gossamer string.

“See,” They said, smiling, “it is a prize for you.  But, you must show effort to win it.”

She was not afraid.  She felt brilliant and weightless.   With her eyes on the glimmering bauble, she made a great leap upwards, arms extended, fingers stretched wide, as if she were going to take flight. 

Just as her fingertips grazed its shiny surface, They yanked it from her reach.  The Brass Ring sung at the strike of her finger tips;  a beautiful note so alluring that she was captivated at once.  But she fell, sprawling to the ground, empty handed, awkward, and confused.  A terrible ache of disappointment flared in her heart.  

They stood over her and smiled.  They said, “better luck next time.”

As she picked herself up from the ground, she vowed to make the Brass Ring her own.

Sometime later, They invited her to try for the Ring again.   They dangled it from its gossamer strand, and it swayed in the sunlight like a dancing flame.   Fixedly, she watched it; tracking its movement, timing her effort.  She readied herself to pounce, muscles bunching and tense.  Suddenly, she sprang into the sky, hands open wide and determined.  Yet again, the Ring sang out at her touch, filling her with desire.  Yet again, They pulled at the thread, and kept the prize from her grasp.

This time, however, she landed on her feet.  She saw the game afoot.   “What good is it to seek the prize you are not ready to give?” she asked boldly as the desperate ache boiled beneath her skin.  

“You still have much to prove.” They said back.  “We will decide when you have earned it.”  This time, They did not smile. 

That night, she was visited by Self Doubt.   He squeezed her heart in his fist, bruising it and scarring it like a peach, and he whispered in her sleepless dreams, “You’ll never be ready.  You’ll never be good enough.”  

At sunrise, she was greeted by Angst, who introduced her to his fellow, Fear.  Every day, they followed her and mocked her wherever she went.  They plucked at her hair and pulled at her clothes.  They tripped her and pushed her and called her names.  And every night, Self Doubt recounted her failures in her ear. 

In time, she grew dull and indifferent. 

Long after, when They saw that she had become only a wraith of what she had once been, They offered her again the Ring. 

“Go on,” They said.  “Take it.”  

They dangled the Brass Ring just above her head, like a crown – closer than They had ever dared let it hang previously. 

Wearily, she looked up at it.  It hovered motionlessly, mere inches from her head, as still as the sun at the horizon. 

Considering it closely for the first time, her eyes drifted over the spots of patina and corrosion that had eaten their way through its luster; and she could barely make out her reflection through the layer of grime and dust that covered its once shining surface. 

No one had cared for it as she would have. 

“We have decided you have earned it.” They said, nodding and showing their teeth.

Slowly, she reached up with one finger, and she tapped its edge.  The Ring sang, and the mournful note echoed in her heart.  Desire awoke in her soul like a Phoenix.  Fire anew spilled into every fiber of her body as the sound reverberated through it.   

With a long last look at her Brass Ring, she sighed and then turned away.

“You may keep your Brass Ring, sirs," she said, "for I have decided to hunt for Gold.”

It's time to clean the house, she said
and I looked on with pride
as years of dust and scattered thoughts
were presently swept from mind.
Though little bits of half-eaten things were
sprinkled amongst the cobwebs,
She didn't stop or stoop to examine
whence those old distractions led.
Oh ho! she cried when a pearl she spied
Remembered a lost love past,
But with a flick, and not even a flinch
It went to the mounting pile of trash!
And then what wondrous speed she took
with gutting her old space!
Acquaintances and memories
were with one stroke erased!
Then when the house looked fine and shined
Though felt an empty shell
She went to her pile of broken things
and burned it all to hell…
And by the glow of a thousand burdens
suddenly set to rights,
She bathed and laughed and danced and prayed
in the crackling golden light.
And I wept with joy to see her face
Shone renewed determination
As she flexed her muscles and stretched her fins
To prepare for life's new destinations.

Oh mysterious eyes
do not beckon me!
I am sick with passion wrought

Oh beautiful words,
do not betray me!
I am weary at the thought

Oh marvelous lips
do not beseech me!
I am with your  answers not

Oh dangerous love
do not beguile me!
I am surrendered to your plot.

"I ate the mouse's babies today," reported the snake regretfully to the Devil, who had no ear of sympathy.  "So you must," replied the devil, with an air that bordered on exasperation.  "It isn't my fault my Brother made you to crawl the earth upon your belly, groveling at the feet of others and swallowing your meals whole.  Besides," he sneered, "you are the lowliest sinner.  You are a marauder and a murderer.   If you didn't eat the mouse's babies, who would?"   The snake coiled around herself, hugging the babies in her belly tightly.  She hissed a lullaby to them.  "So it has been decided as my place in life.  My duty in the order of things," she said resolutely.  "So long as you live, your task will never be complete," the Devil laughed.  


She parted company with him and wound her way down to the River.  There, she curled up on a warm flat rock and inspected her scales in the sun.  They were dirty and rough, calloused and hard from scraping along the floor of the Garden.  They carried the marks of punishment  - tree bark scrapes and grass blade nicks and bruises from stones.  "So it is the way of things. I cannot expect to be as beautiful and bright as the birds." 

Then she looked down into the River and admired the way it wound through its bed - smooth and flat on top, but constantly moving underneath, carrying the secret current of life as it meandered effortlessly through the Valley.  It washed away the dirt from the shoreline when it grew fat in the spring, leaving smoothed and polished rocks behind for the summer sun to bleach.  "Perhaps I should rest here until the River washes me as well,"  she said.  She coiled herself around the rock and waited.   Before long, the skies filled with clouds, and rains fell forth. The River began to swell.  The snake was bitterly cold through the torrent, but she squeezed close to her rock and watched the water rise with hope.  She hissed her lullaby, and closed her mind to sleep.... 


But the water never reached her.  Though the rains fell and fell, the River carried the rising water away.  When the sun finally burst forth and burned away the remaining clouds, the snake awoke to a misty haze and realized that she was not washed smooth like the rocks below.   "So even the River forsakes me," she sighed. 

 "Not forsaken, groundling," came a Voice above her.   She jerked upright, assuming a defensive posture.  "Go away," she spat, "I am a danger to you!"  She bared her fangs and searched through the haze for the Speaker, and found she could see nothing in the blinding whiteness of the new sun.  "Peace, daughter. I am no danger to you."
  

"Forgive me," she said, recoiling warily, "I didn't realize it was You."  "You have grown much since last I saw you." said the Speaker, with a hint of amusement.  "The Devil has many assignments for me," she admitted with a lump in her throat.  The young mice were still there.  "So he does," said the Voice, more softly, "it is the nature of things."  "I understand my  role in this," she said, as she gestured towards the Garden.  "Yes. You are fit for it. That is why you were chosen.  You are the Messenger and the Collector.  You, of all creatures, bear the greatest burden, though your form would belie the weight of it. And you perform dutifully and faithfully, as expected.  You have overcome many obstacles and matured much.  Uncoil yourself from that stone and receive this gift from me."   

Still blind, but curious, the snake obeyed and cautiously unwound herself from her rock.  As she did, she felt her scales catch on the bottom, and her skin pulled away from her.  It was an odd sensation, but it did not pain her.  As she continued forward, the skin on her nose broke open with a little pop, and it peeled away from her face.  A sudden clarity poured into her vision, and the world was alive around her.  She burst forward, amazed at the beautiful colors. 
"Be free of the sins your skin carries, child."  She whipped around to find her Maker, struggling with the last inches of her old self.  But there was no one but herself and the blue, clear River. Around the rock was a white translucent shell of her body, with all its imperfections, crumpled and deflated.  It rattled dryly in the soft wind.  Alive with wonder, she looked down into the water of the River and beheld her reflection.  Her bright new scales gleamed in the sunlight.  She had been forgiven.