Our Ladon is the memory of a cherry tree from the backyard of my youth. There was a Spring years ago, when it was fully bloomed. It carpeted the ground around it in plush pink, but its vibrant petals were eclipsed by the contrast of a dark form that twisted through its branches. A massive eastern rat snake decided to scale its limbs. The enormous snake draped itself among the branches, the long length of it appearing and disappearing in the masses of flowers. It stretched its head toward the sun and in that moment I felt that I was witnessing a myth -- a true myth -- something ancient and important. It was the serpent Ladon, the yard was the garden of the Hesperides, flipped to an eternal dawn instead of dusk. I watched it, stunned into silence. Its shining black scales glinted against the velvety softness of the cherry blossoms. Its sinuous neck wavered back and forth among the plumage of the tree.