curving back double
diamond-back snake slides slowly
down the mossy stone
Walking down a shady little path to the Kamegawa, I almost step on a long stick lying by the river's edge. The stick moves, and I take a step back. It's a thin, brown snake with a diamond pattern, about a meter long. As I watch it move across a muddy inlet, a young Japanese girl comes down the path. "Hebi!" I say, happy that this happens to be one of the few words I know in Japanese. The girl stops as if struck. An older man comes down behind the girl and she gestures and chatters excitedly about hebi. The girl retreats but the man and I continue to watch the snake as it climbs up a moss-covered outcrop. At the top, it reaches one end, searches the empty air with its head, then doubles back along its length. At one point, as the body forms a long loop, the snake's head and tail are side by side. Then the head dips down the back side of the rocks and the tail obediently follows the entire path traced by the head until it too vanishes.
When I show the photos to my Japanese friends, they tell me it's auspicious to see a snake. Curious as to what kind of snake it is, I find a website with photos of Japanese snakes. The one that looks the most like my snake is Iwasaki Sedaka Hebi (Pareas iwasakii), Iwasaki's slug snake. This seems a rather inappropriate name for such an elegant snake, which doesn't look like a slug at all.
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