BobbPoetMarly blog post

Black berries and rattles snakes a story of respect by Bobb Marly

Black berries and rattles snakes a story of respect
by Bobb Marly
24 May 2020 10:05 pm

When I was growing up every summer my Uncle and I would go black berry picking. We would take plastic peanut butter buckets or lard buckets and head out into the thickets and hot sun. One summer we found the best patch of black berries that I had ever seen! They were as big as the end of my thumb and juicy sweet, not bitter at all! This patch was located on an old strip mine site so it was flat and had a road through it and was easy to get to. The patch was so thick that you could lean into it and not fall. I remember that time so well it was one of the better times that I spent with my Uncle although most of the time we did not get along to well.

That day we were getting along very well and having a great time picking berries and to tell the truth we probably ate more than we put in the buckets. He was about one hundred feet from where I was picking and I was leaning real hard into the patch to reach some particularly large berries when all of a sudden I felt a vibration against my leg and heard the unmistakeable rattle of the snake! I froze still as a statue and stood there motionless for about a minute. The things that I had learned about snakes went through my mind and kept me calm. I remembered that rattlers will warn you when you are to close and if you make sudden moves they may strike. So I just stood there until it had a little time to calm down. Then I inched my feet back slowly, very slowly one foot at a time. Then when I was clear of the patch and the snake I thought about the pistol on my side and about killing that snake but then it came to me.

That snake was so close that it could have easily bit me, but it did not. I was not its food and it did not want to bite me. It was kind enough to warn me away so why would I want to repay its kindess with death. It let me live and so i let it live, it respected me and so I respected it. I went on picking berries in another spot and I suppose it went on its way doing its job of controling the rodent population. Not every deadly moment has to end in a death, sometimes they can end in respect.Copyright © Bobb Marly | Year Posted 2021