Louisiana Bayou

6/23/09

I remember well the silence on the boat

As we began the bayou tour that day

The water grass so thick it seemed like land,

A stillness covered all, the sky steel-grey.

A sudden fear as we came upon the snakes

Sunning themselves on limbs of fallen trees,

Poisonous and lethal moccasins.

Faintly in the distance by some cays

Children were swimming in the turbid stream

Unmindful of danger, unconcerned with death.

And then a great white owl at its kill

Rose swiftly as we passed, we held our breath

As the guide now warning us to call

If snakes dropped from the branches close above.

Yet there is beauty here and ghostly blooms

By a hand that fashions everything with love.

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*water moccasin or cottonmouth, a highly venomous snake