Winter Edition #4 December, 1995 p#4
and when he was done warming him self, he waited to be eaten. It took many days for the snail to be eaten. In patches of water and light he waited and waited. Finally, a white crane came to his bedside. Her beak blossomed through his flesh and his heart burst, sending shards of filtered heat into her body. The bird flew for miles and in flying, she gave the snail to the sky. 
When the bird died, she splintered into a thousand colors like dewdrops at dawn.The snail fell back to the brown earth, where he waited in the clay to be born...
I can't seem to get the Everglades out of my mind. Man controls the water flow of the Everglades, how much they let in and how much they let out. Man (i.e., sugarcane companies) will flood the 'glades to keep the water supply at a profitable level without a thought to the destruction that can occur with the slightest unbalance of this interconnected ecosystem. Raise the water level two inches, kill snail eggs. Few snails survive, snail kite (a bird who's only source of food is snail) dies from lack of food. Oh well, another endangered creature as a result of man's need for control. As a culture, the 'evolutionary superior' human being has generally found it necessary to control everything. Few have been able to rise above that need. Imagine what it would be like to travel unfettered, free of the responsibility of 'making something happen'. That's what the Buddha does, just sits around and LETS it all happen. Freedom, just give up control and there it is. Freedom. Athena smiled, nodded, and walked away...