memorial for a black snake

No photo today. I feel a bit wimpy about this topic, but I find I don't know what to think about it. Advice led me to purchase some bird netting to protect my blueberry bushes, as they are coming into fruit. When we came back from a five day trip, I had caught a black snake.

It wasn't just caught. It was wrapped and snagged and twisted. And dead. It must have struggled so valiantly and then, adding insult to injury, something came along and ate off its head. 

I apologized multiple times as I clipped it out of the deadly trap, losing half my netting and unable to unwind any from the snake's body, my imagination showing me the snake's last moments, the agony and confusion. I know I am anthropomorphizing, but I have to judge this occurrence as dreadful. Sometimes a snake in the garden is innocent. 

But the garden no longer is. The netting brought death within its borders and tainted my fantasy imagery of the space. Of course, this blog IS about "A relationship with the beautiful, the tough, the frustrating, the fruitful and the barren, dusty places..." Right?  I will have to file this under "tough." Tough for me. Toughest for the snake. 

I have removed all the netting. For some reason most of the blueberries are gone now anyway. Some sort of cosmic recompense, I suppose.