~ Louisiana Purchase State Park
From the boardwalk, mid-morning February light
cascades into this dense stand of cypress and tupelo –
limbs gone bare save for the buds rippling the surface
waiting for days of more sun than this. These trees
are well acquainted with the lush light and the life
of constant water, the air here patient as the tombs
that lay beneath the ancient cathedrals of Europe.
We come in winter to breathe it in before the swelter
and the biting hordes descend. We lose ourselves
in silver, gray, brown, and black, listen as the wind
whistles through the gaps. We watch the way the still
swamp reflects trunk after trunk, doubling the depth
of our perceptions. We say transcendent and ethereal
and we know the words for what they lack.
