Lost on Snake Rock

Where does Snake Rock start? I followed the path that comes down from Indian Head and curves under the English Bridge, a mossy stone arch dark and drippy underneath, and when I stepped out of the tunnel and looked up at the ferns growing between the blocks— I live in the English Bridge—I was sure I had entered a different land. I followed a path marked by two red circles, a picture of fang marks, and it terminated at a rock marked with an X and the word END in red paint and 666 in white. I looked over the rock; after a step up it gently sloped down and widened out, a long, flat trough covered in lichen. Should I climb over and sit and write? No—666 says not to loiter. I soon found myself on a path marked with one red circle: another picture of the snake, a cross-section or a view down the worm hole. This trail is well marked, with a red circle always in sight, on a tree or rock. I love this language of trail signs, these markers of the mind in nature. They say: I think you know where you are (you’re on the back of the worm (the trail is the worm. Now the red circle is painted over fading yellow rectangles: a palimpsest. Then red rectangles over yellow, then just red rectangles. Is that the sign of warrior people, a picture of a stripe of war paint? Is this where I once looked down and saw boys at the bottom of the hill pouring gas into a motorbike from a can? No—I am on top of the English Bridge, crossing over my old path; I do not know the curve of the spirals I have walked.