All around him November rainhisses like a thousand snakes -- around himand on him and almost through him untilhe is little more than a knotted skeinof sodden hair.
It is late November and life has narrowed(as rain ices the leafless branches)to three small circles. Fear freezestwo that are eyes, but the third whirlslike a prayer wheel.
The third circle is the most human:handlike, split into fingery tendrils,forepaws gnarled as by arthritisare spinning an acorn cradled whereteeth can scrape it.
He could be opening a jar,the even swivel following a thread --except that this thread never ends:turning and turning, the acorn's lidwill not unscrew.
What if he could break the sealand read, as in tea leaves, the pattern of an endcongealed in his burrow among tree roots,or spell his entrails on some roadin senseless translation?
Would knowledge of an end (the snake'slinear gift) trip the light leaperof kinder seasons, trap him spellboundin an all-too-human winter, our straitof inland ice?
His ignorance of neverlandis freedom from a frozen world;the tale he spins, because unfinished,more complete than ours; his tongueall present tense.
