In the forrest was a clearing, and in that clearing was a giant monolithic
A block of granite, mostly gray in color, but with tiny mirrors of mica
Each reflecting tiny sparks of light at some fixed angle to the sun
It had crystals too of quartz, some quite large
These added still more character to its roughened sides

The crystals sometimes fell to the ground below, like jewels cast aside
Mixing jewels with the spalled debris of ages
For even granite does not resist the cycles of the sun
Heat and cold, repeating without end, have done this thing
And weathered down this hardest of our native rocks

The granite sides were nearly vertical, impossible to climb
Its top was round and smooth, like a great round table, high as a man
The circumference, measured by large men standing side by side
Arms outstretched, fingers barely toughing as they reached around its girth
Was barely met by six men straining to their greatest reach

The rock was once a part of mother earth, from deep within her mantle
Where red hot stone is churned and kneaded like a vat of bakers’ dough
Till titanic forces raised it to the surface and glaciers caught it in their flow
The glacial ice had scraped and ground this stone into its present shape
Then carried it far to this foreign soil, an erratic they are called

Ancient in its geologic age it was, but history is a different from age alone
And it is the history of this place we seek, the mystery we would solve
For this rock, it seems alive somehow, filled with magic and with power
It pulls us to attention, it gnaws at us, we curious types, it frightens too
And for that we wonder why, it’s just a stone, is it not

History is a remembered thing, and for that we need the mind of man
But men were recent in their coming here
And the secrets of this place must long precede their time
We know that hunters stopped here once, built a hearth, then left in haste
Why else would they have left their knapping tools and arrow points behind
 
Descendants of that early hunting tribe can still be found about
Though perhaps a hundred generations may have intervened 
And to this day we find they treat this place with the greatest of taboo
And mark with flags of warning a perimeter wide around
That implies the type of history we would like to know

The natives call this a place where the things of nightmares dwell
Things named only by their shaman, we are told
When singing sacred songs while in narcotic trance
They tell us too that these most sacred men can look into the past
Look backward into time by many, many steps

These men can see through the eyes of those who taught them how
Through eyes that came before in time
Eyes to eyes, sons to fathers to grandfathers
They look backward in an infinite chain
Back to when their art began

So we asked those shamans what this place might be
What is this stone and this clearing in the woods
And they told us in their stupor the little that they knew
The stone was sacred long before their tribe began, they said
It had been sacred at the very dawn of man, perhaps before

Back when glaciers still retreated from the land and cold north winds blew
Sweeping clean this virgin ground for its new beginning
The stone was ancient even then, they told us
Ancient even when this wood first was wondered by men of different clan

Those other men came from far away, from where the north winds blow
They’d followed herds of mighty beasts we’d never see today
Hairy things with massive heads, crossing tusks, and a grotesque trunk
Rhinos too with shaggy hair, the horn upon their snout longer than a spear
And cattle and dear taller than a man, with giant spans of horns or antlers

These other men, they hunted and they killed those wild beasts
We’ve found stone heads of arrow and of lance imbedded in their bones
Proof to us they had no fear to stand in hunter’s stance to face their charge
And, as we’ve said, these beasts were not like those we see today
But far more massive when compared to puny man

And yet those shamans also spoke of what they saw as overwhelming fear
Burned so deeply into the minds of early men, it would never disappear
Something even men so brave had come to knew was far beyond control
For they had tried with ritual dance and sacrifice to find some resolution
Or, barring that, to cleanse their souls with forms of absolution

But the shamans of their clan could not protect them from that unseen thing
And brave men lived in constant fear of an evil that they knew was there
Hiding in the night, perhaps, their souls not protected until first light of dawn
It was something in that stone, they said, that stone within the clearing
It came to them in fevered nightmare dreams, a haunting never ending
 
A gross, malevolent thing it must have been, to bring on such foreboding
The shamans said that they could hear still now those piteous moans
From deep within their souls, stuff from which all fears and loathing springs
And these, remember, were men of strength and courage beyond compare
What is this thing, how can we protect ourselves from such malignant host
 
Those ancient thoughts passed forward through that shaman chain
So our modern shaman now could see things both ancient and unknown
A sacred tea was drunk from an ancient cup of broken aurochs horn
A shard really, found buried in a cave, but retaining still a well carved image
An image of a snake, a snake upon a rock

Then, in their sodden dreams they saw that snake
It was as majestic as the sacred stone on which it laid
Its scales, they sparkled too like the mica in that stone
It’s eyes like quartz jewels set ablaze
It seemed a holy thing, its compassion and serenity so well displayed

A creature of intelligence and wisdom this surely was
Its nobility of the highest rank shown clearly through
If not a god, then at least a king of sorts
And a benevolent king at that
It was not, in short, a fearful thing

Its length, they saw, was equal to the circumference of that stone
Not an accident they soon found, but a requirement from the remotest past
For this stone was held most sacred by all snakes, as an alter and a throne
With length around matched only by the best among their serpent kind
This was how the snakes did choose a leader, the shamans came to know

And they discovered too that, in those archaic, remote times
Snakes could speak most fluently, and in a tone most charming to the ear
In rhymes and verses their speech did flow, as in some mythic text
So sweet that all anxiety and fear about its source it did dispel
And instilled in stead a thirst to hear still more

It was next the shamans understood the context of what they saw
That leader was presiding over a congress just convened
An assembly of the best of snakedom from throughout the globe
Come to hear their very civilization was in parle and the world in jeopardy
An event more momentous than any seen before

And now there came a great surprise, wholly unexpected to our ears
For the decisions that the snakes must make regarded human kind
A species then new upon the earth and never seen before
Legged creatures newly dawned upon this ancient scene
But having thinking minds, like those of snakes, a potential tragedy

A dangerous thing indeed, the serpents all agreed
Thinking minds in a species new and ignorant of the past
Without experience how could they temper their thinking minds
Or control passions and emotions they didn’t understand
Oh what evil they might do

And so they deliberated, advising through their logic and through prayer
Calling on forces that had always brought to them a peaceful life and hope
They searched as well the thoughts of scholars in their past
And brought forth all the wisdom of their elders
It took many weeks of thinking and debate to just define its scope

And finally they did all agree, all creatures are children of this earth
From least to best, thinking minds or not
Placed here by time and forces beyond our power of knowing
And made dependent upon each other, a fact of life that’s fatal if forgot
We share this place that we call earth and share as equals all its fruits

So what is it we must say to man to teach them of their place on earth
To teach them of the powers, and dangers, of their thinking minds
Tread softly, we would say, till we give you the knowledge we have gained
For we have experience that you don’t have, we have learned our limits
But still live lives full of knowledge and of love, completely unrestrained

And so these delegates returned to homes, both near and far away
And sought out people of mankind to give to them the gift of knowledge
They approached them gently, only love and friendship did they display
They offered man such wondrous things, and asked for nothing in return

But what they found was arrogance and pride in stead
For men were deaf to what the serpents had to say
They had asked for nothing in return and that’s exactly what they got
We stand tall upon this earth, men said, and you’re but lowly snakes
We’ll stomp your crawling shapes and take from you the things we need

You have no rights, you see, for we are men empowered by god
Who’s made us in his image, and in his name we rule over things like you
We’re far better and more worthy than you are, in both thought and deed
And far more handsome too
You’ve the first to slithered to my feet, one said, and you may kiss them first

And furthermore, since only mankind should have the power of speech
I’m going to slit your tongue, he said, and leave you only hissing sounds
I’ll kill you if I find the chance and cook your meat upon a spit
From your skin I’ll make a handsome belt or a pair of shoes
You snakes, he said, you have everything to lose

And this, is seems, was typical of every man’s response
Knowledge and friendship were turned away and only carnage followed
For the snakes, like missionaries, could not abandon hope
And persisted in their attempts to save the soul of every man they found
That made them vulnerable and exposed, they were killed just for the sport

Nine out of ten would died, often even more
And whatever hopes remained from generations yet to come were crushed
Quite literally, by men who sough out and destroyed every egg
In all of history, only nature had caused more thorough an extinction

A few snakes struggled back to that clearing in the wood
Beaten down, demoralized, exhausted but still willing
To do what their leader thought was for the common good
But sadly, they soon came to know that their leader, too, had died

This was tragedy beyond all comprehension
For most survivors no families or friends remained for words of comfort
For sympathetic touch or quiet conversation
The magnitude of depression was beyond all understanding

And all this time mankind pranced about, expounding on its success
In proving that they were superior to the snakes, and to all of god’s creation
They were, they said, the last and best of all the thinking creatures
Unstoppable in their conquest of all they did survey
Almost gods themselves, or so they thought

But soon their appeared the consequences of their arrogance and folly
If not the wrath of god then at least the wrath of nature
For without the snakes to eat the mice and rats, they ate the farmers’ grain
In ponds and streams the toads and frogs would overrun the fish
And Insects swarmed to carry disease both far and wide

And those thinking men who needed no advice or experience with this life
Now fought among themselves, having found a taste for blood and killing
They soon turned upon their own, and fratricide became a growing storm
Ii could not stop, each man being more prideful and arrogant than the next

But finally sense of a curious type came to those human minds
It’s foolish to kill our brothers, members of our clan, some said
We’ll only kill the others, they’re the lesser ones, that’s plainly to be seen
As if to say that we’ll trust no one, excepting you and me

As time went by the remaining snakes around their sacred rock
Regained their strength by drawing from the stone its magic
Gradually, they recovered from their shock and formulated a plan
Unfortunately, as we will see, the consequences proved tragic

And mankind too recovered from its shock
They’d found more profit in the wars they fought with other tribes
And thus, several tribes did flourish in both wealth and population
That’s not to say, however, that wisdom came with this success
For knowledge, for the sake of knowledge, meant little to these clans

But the secret that the snakes had found from closely watching man
Was that some among them did, in fact, have a mighty thirst to know
And these few could provide some meagre hope for reconciliation
They’d seek one out in hopes of exchanging knowledge for respect

Now this time was so early in the evolution of mankind
That a single pair might impose their traits on all the men that followed
The human myths would call this pair their Adam and their Eve
And place them in a special place called Eden

The snakes, by now, had gleaned the fact that one such pair existed
An Eve, at least, who had that thirst for knowledge not to be contained
So they sent to her the smartest of their kind
To plead their case and to offer her the knowledge of the ages

What happened next is not now clearly understood
The woman, we do know, accepted the offer of the snake
And she gained thereby the knowledge she desired
But among the things she learned, one broached the greatest of taboos

This was a fact the gods had wished to hide from man
That thinking things, whether snakes or men
Do share in the divinity of the gods
An can demand an equal place among the heavens

Oh what horrid sin, the gods decreed, to suggest that we have equals
It was bad enough for the snakes to think that way
But at least they were of a peaceful tribe
But mankind, they are full of arrogance and of pride and never to be trusted

We have no choice, the gods did say, we need to damn them both
To servitude and toil, and everlasting ignorance of their true potential
We’ll take from snakes their knowledge and forever slit their tongues
And as for men, we’ll leave them as they are, that’s punishment enough

But, just for fun, we’ll add an element of shame for them to savor
We’ll let them realize just what they’ve lost by not listening to those snakes
But we’ll make them fear both snakes and what knowledge they might learn
And fill their minds with silly myths and prejudice most vile

So now we’ve come about full circle
We’re back to the magic of that granite rock within the clearing
And we have found the source of what we’ve seen as fear
It’s wasn’t fear at all, you see, but everlasting shame for what we’ve done
We’d brought upon ourselves what we now call the original sin of man