Every city has its guardians. In New Orleans, some wear scales.
 
The Serpent of Chartres Street began as a quiet morning photograph,  the French Quarter still half-asleep, the sky the color of old copper. Through digital collage, the scene awakened into myth: a cobra risen in the center of the street, coiled and calm, as if it had always been there, watching.
Its skin shimmers with the echoes of iron balconies and riverlight. Behind it, the cathedral stands sentinel, and the air hums with the low music of stories that refuse to die.
 
In Tongue of the Serpent, the snake is not an enemy but a threshold, the old voice that asks, “Do you remember who you were before you were afraid?”
 
This piece is both an invocation and a warning: beauty often begins with the hiss before the song.