TRAVEL

I didn’t much want to go, not caring for adventure, what to expect, imagining

alligator attack, drowning in deep water, some vicious consciousness, so far away from home.

The long train ride, whistles in my sleep, tug away from every thing I knew.

TEN THOUSAND ISLANDS

Because it’s tidal, easy out toward the islands: piles of shells in the shallows.

Mangrove roots red and tangled dripping shells, dripping mandrake-shapes, wading seedlings gathering shells, shell-sand grinding the canoe.

Sand crabs, mysterious digs and arguments. The strangeness of these fish.

Bromeliads arranged and mosses, deep green shades, mosquitoes between the trees. All between the gumbo limbo and mahogany, all along Calusa paths.

Thick water silence, green-gray shell-made clay, islands the mangroves made, Calusa made.

Hours of slow shell-grinding, drip of water from oar, drip from mangrove thick leaf, tangled root. Then easy in, the shallow tide slip gray-green.