wispy cirrus clouds flow in undulating waves across

the panel of lapis lazuli, so many ephemeral gray echoes of the great blue

herons stalking through the shallows on double reeds.

the earth is a sleeping behemoth, chest rising and

falling in the wake of our airboat with rippling

waves of slate gray, her silent yet majestic melodies

of times immemorial rolling across the green swathes of meadow

sweeping along the banks.

ancient bald cypresses shudder at the churning whitewater as we round

a bend, the shadowy recesses within their gnarled knees a refuge for dozing

alligators, their submerged scaly hides emblems

of Nature’s hidden grandeur.

the blustery wind whips like a sinuous serpent across the tranquility

blanketing the land, its mournful laments desolate echoes of what

once was, before the age of Man,

and I am

but a tourist.