EVERGLADES #5: May

The birds have gone. No golden-slippered egret, no blue-eyed cormorant, no wading stork shielding dark water with her wings. Silence is absolute.

Mangroves are weary, dusty. In the fetid pools, mosquitoes awaken. Already the air is thick with heat.

Alligator spoor— dinosaur track, tail-drag— marks the muddy flats like the handwriting of the blind.