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day 01 Friday, January 14, 2000 (written Saturday) Everglades National Park, Long pine Camp …(continued) Here I am away from the noises of the air conditioner of the restaurant next door, and the ticking of the slightly off-balance ceiling fan in my living room, and tourists’ car alarms crying wolf at all hours. Here is the sound of wind in trees. And such trees. Slash pine in the everglades: low palmettos and grass and fern below, rod-straight unbranched poles of the trunks, uniform in diameter and height, green needled tops, sheer enough to let in plenty of sky. Yesterday I saw an alligator, still in dark water. I stopped on the road to watch the society of black headed vultures cleaning a carcass (perhaps a deer) and engaging in an elaborate Byzantine ritual of precedence. I also stopped at a roadside vegetable stand. I bought peanuts and oranges and two kinds of tomatoes and was introduced to friendly strangers by my friendly dog. I thought of stands just like this one in Southern California when Eisenhower was president and my mother would shop with concealed glee, pinching lasciviously ripe tomatoes and inhaling the incense of fresh strawberries. Friday night I bustled and worried over "what’s next?" find a campsite, get firewood and water, rearrange the van. I have to keep saying, "it’s all right," I should write in my daytimer: 1. get firewood 2. build fire 3. watch stars come out. |
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Everglades Poems
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