Poignant

Harry W. Greene has always been a hero of mine. This is an excerpt from an essay taken out of his book, Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature, in which he attempts to explain why he chose to study snakes for his profession. It's one of my favorite passages:
"At that time I had hoped to write about working as an army medic among the guys who had made it back from Vietnam, chance assignments having spared me, and about how their shattered limbs and faces still sadden me. I wanted to articulate vivid memories of automobile accidents and fatal house fires; of shooting and stabbing victims in dark, smoky bars; and especially of the faintly sour milk smell of an unconscious child, of gently puffing air into her mouth and pushing on her little chest, and finally collapsing in tears against a tile wall when the emergency room physician said she was gone. I imagined that my prose might honor a first lover and an influential teacher who each had been murdered, and that I would summom hope and gratitude for the squalling, healthy babies I had delivered. How obvious now that venomous serpents have been personal icons of danger, of life and death - as if in that crystalline moment when the fangs pierce another creature, I might finally understand my own fears and losses."