The frog, yellowed like an old photograph or isinglass, twisted toward the surface -- spinning, falling, reaching.
Something, I thought, is eating it.
Then I saw the unmistakable shape of the fearsome snapping turtle. I didn't move (silly of me since I wasn't threatened), but when it rose to the surface, first with only the nose and then one eye and the nose, something slick and whitish floated from its jaw, and I felt myself sliding, pierced by that great eye, before it even saw me.
When it did, he disappeared without a splash.
Imagine my surprise when I encountered this fellow on the way to work this morning. Half a block from my house, at the corner of Mikell and Tennessee, this fellow rested in the street.
At first, I honestly didn't know what I was seeing. When I did, I flipped on the emergency flashers and leapt out of the car, camera in hand. However, the closer I walked, the more he intimidated me. As a result, I fear my photos aren't especially well focused.Never have I seen a snapping turtle in the wild, and wild he is. Look at his claws! His tail! His jaw! His eyes!
Another driver stopped and said, "Try to pick him up and he'll take a finger!"Even the police said, when I called, "We take the advice of Animal Control; we leave 'em alone."I sure hope that the college undergraduates, arriving in town now, left him alone as he lumbered across the street, toward a chapel, the Seminary, and two dorms.
No poetry today, just awe as ancient as this species, the common snapping turtle.
