THE SNAKE by Emily Dickinson

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
Upbraiding 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.

Was she a geek or a brainiac in today’s politically correct re-named world, our Emily Dickinson? Her unique and introspective ‘takes’ on the natural world, on life, love, death, war and God will continually startle and please her readers. But she never met our leader, Obama, to whom her final reptilian words apply. I’ve heard this fellow’s speeches and attended to his socialist pronouncements; consequently, I’m breathless with fear ( like Emily) and zero at my bone.