Brown, gold, amber, red.
Those were the colors
Of the leaves
On the floor of the forest
In the middle of the wilderness.

And the birds were singing
And the squirrels were chattering.
But the rattlesnake coiled
In the colored leaves was silent
As the grave.

And then, would you believe it?
Upon that quiet clearing
In the middle of the wilderness
Happened a snorting horse
And its rider.

And though the horse was nervous
And its rider, vigilant
Neither of them
Glanced down
At that bed of colored leaves.

And the leaves crunched when
The horse stepped and then
The snake slithered
And the leaves, those colored leaves
They rustled in the rattlesnake’s wake.

And the nervous horse jumped at the sound
And even after the rattlesnake
Had slithered quickly away
The horse, that nervous, silly horse
It kept jumping.

And the rider,
Who was vigilant, but not looking
In the right place at the right time
He wasn't quite ready and so he fell
And his neck snapped.

The horse bolted.
The rattlesnake slithered.
Then all was quiet.
Yes, every thing
Even the rider.

It was nobody’s fault.
No, not really.
Because, after all, the rider was watching
And the horse was just nervous
And the rattlesnake was just scared.

What do you do
About a cold-blooded rattlesnake
Silent and scared
In a bed of cloaking leaves
Hidden from someone whose looking?