How will I know when it’s my last summer sitting in the open doorway smelling the soft green dampness
Later suddenly opening the door I see the snails have gathered on the step again
Maybe they are discussing my future as they move on the red tiles.
I can’t go out without stepping on them and my foot is not so cruel today
I close the door again.
Nothing is so important that it could justify killing snails
And can they see us when they stop gluing themselves to the ground?
How would we find out whether the snails could see us?
If I had asked the teacher at school she would have said that I was being difficult or recalcitrant or simply stupid.
Well in the religious lesson we learned something about God but we also learned that God is unknowable.
And I’m wondering whether snails are also unknowable.
Still one snail can know another snail whereas one God cannot know another
Because there is no other
That means God is very lonely but that must not mean anything.
Just because we can write the sentence down in English it doesn’t imply that it mean something.
But what is pleasant for humans is to know another human
And for snails perhaps that is also the case
Yet God the indivisible has no Other
Is that why he created snails
But how would you know what the snail was when there were no snails?
And how would he have imagined the butterflies and the moths
The ladybirds and the book worms.
I guess he is an interesting fellow. But unknowable to us.
In that case it’s good to be courteous and not to be too proud.
We are just a few steps up from the worm and the beetle and the butterfly
Maybe my words don’t mean anything but I’m thinking
I’m thinking I love snails.
How my heart sings 