Lost on the Bayou

Deep in the shadows
Green lights play
Will o' the wisp
At the close of day
Black licorice trunks of
Bald cypress decay
Drifting ghost mists
Dance and sway

Spanish moss drips
On dryer ground
From mighty oaks
Where mint is found
Near beds of moss;
Drops of blood
Flower from green;
Soft underfoot

Rich is the air
With the smell of loam
In the place that
Lichens call their home
Thoughts become tangled
As mangrove roots
Flowers hang from
Extended shoots

Honeysuckle, sickening sweet
Drifts in humid August heat

Alligators swim
Beneath and through
Black water brackish
Along the bayou
Mosquitoes hum
With dragonflies
Wings like drums
Of voodoo rites

See the spider
Drop from his thread
Spinning silk
Building his web
Over pools of
Soft quicksand
As water ripples
With moccasins

Here the serpent
Is king on a throne
Wherever he slithers
He finds a home
Hawks scream warning
Too late to turn back
Lost where waters
Are cool and black

Deep in the shadows
Green lights drown
Black waters rise
To drink them down
With souls of the lost
Until skies turn blue
As red-throated loons
Sing in the bayou

Water, Blood and the Sea

There was water and sound
In the womb
Motion and warmth inside

There is life and salt
In the ocean
Endless flow of wave and tide

There was a rush of blood
In our birth
Forced into the cold and light

Whitecaps push onto the shore
In a hush
Washing sand cool and white

The coral seems umbilical
On the floor
Of the throbbing sea

Resting upon the bed of earth
With the urchin
And the anemone

In the vast pulse of the spherical
World it flows
Blood in the heart of humanity

And there all is as it should be
Salt and life
Water, blood and the sea