A friend loaned me the book “The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating” by Elisabeth Tova Bailey after I had two back-to-back surgeries to remove the pieces of a ruptured disc. The second surgery was needed to root out a pesky piece of the disc tucked tightly under the nerve root. Neuropathic pain is, well, no fun, no fun at all.

I read the book slowly, savoring every word, every paragraph, every page, discovering a love for snails and their slimy trails (spiders don’t like to prey on snails because they don’t like to get their faces slimed). In the middle of the book I found a poem that put a big smile on my face and spoke lovingly to me as a story. Here it is. It’s kind of long, but worth every line

SNAILS GO TO A FUNERAL

Away to a dead leaf's burial 

 Two snails set off one day 

 In their shells all painted black 

 And crepe wound round their horns 

 They start out through the dark 

 On a very fine Fall night 

 Alas! when they arrive Spring has already come 

 The leaves that were dead 

 Have all revived

 The two long patient snails

 Are very much depressed 

 But then the sun is there

 The sun to say to them 

 Please be so kind, so good 

 As to seat yourselves 

 And drink a glass of beer . . . 

 Then all the beasts and plants 

 And trees begin to sing

 Each one to sing his song 

 To sing as loud as they can 

 The true, the living song 

 The song of summer 

 And everyone to drink 

 And everyone to clink 

 Glasses, this pretty night 

 This pretty summer's night 

 And the two snails 

 Return to their homes 

 They go away quite touched 

 They go away quite happy 

 Since they have drunk a lot 

 They stagger a little bit 

 But there on high in the sky 

 The moon watches over them.

     Poem by Jacques Prévert @1941

         Translated by Lloyd Parks

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