Elegy for a Garden Snail

This week, I stepped on a snail—robbing it of its life. The tragedy prompted me to reflect on these often-maligned creatures and on my own effect on the garden.

A snail glides
across my porch handrail

Elegy for a Garden Snail

I stepped outside with the grandest of intentions

To pluck away weeds that through my neglect persisted

But in a careless moment of delusion and inattention

I claimed the life of a gastropod and altered an ecosystem

I had raised my hoe high; it was poised to strike 

Eager to deprive stubbornly rooted undesirables of life

I leaned in with a heavy tread and my footfall triggered a crunch

The sickening sound of slow death to which my invincible mood plunged 

It was a terrestrial mollusk crushed underfoot

Its calcium shell cracked into dozens of pieces

A lazy laggard that in life did no obvious good

A tentacled pest with the teeth of a demon

And yet I felt deep guilt and shame

For my capacity to cause such pain

A broken sphere leaves no place to hide or retract

Exposing the calamity of my catastrophic impact

Nocturnal sluggard loafing in the darkness of night

Sedate under damp pots, verandas, and stones

Night-loving lounger you welcomed the sight

Of rain clouds and puddles and gnomes

Hungry herbivore banded by brown whirling swirls 

Peaceful grazer painted yellow by coiling whorls 

Unhurried in your moonlight travels on silver slime trails

Bathed by the moisture of dawn’s foggy veil

Foraging friend I so do regret

The grievous mistakes I have made

A negligent step impossible to forget

And the arrogance I have displayed

Who am I to attempt to tame the wild?

To bring order to earth’s chaos beguiled

Who am I to declare what is unwanted?

To reap destruction; to be forever haunted

I walk in the garden now to seek solace

In nature’s untamed mastery on a magnificent scale

I try to step lightly among the weeds and land mollusks

A lesson I learned from an unfortunate snail

Happy Gardening!  Remember to step lightly.