Defining Poetry

wetland

Wetland

We have no mountains
rising to the sun
the eye arcs north and south
across a river of grass,
the palm trees and mangroves
sluicing the sky
as we drive the Tamiami Trail.

Over and over, the children ride
the dragon coaster
at the Everglades fair
unknowing that beneath them rides
the vouivre , a coiled serpent
of telluric currents
full of the earth's energy.

Our watery world floats
on shell mounds
left by the Calusa centuries before
and one perfect storm
might erase us, too.
The wet center is endless
and may not hold.