Serpent

by Ruth Calder Murphy

I shed my skin, snake that I am,
serpent coiled in the setting sun.
I turn around and the world has changed
and my body crawls from its shell again.

Asleep on the rock in the heat of the day,
I bask in the light 'til the sun slides away.
I slip to the hollow under the stone
when the west claims the sun and the daylight is gone.

I look to the past, to the scales I have shed
in the light of the seasons, now lying dead
and I know as I look where the new days dawn,
with the skin that is lost my hope is reborn.