Broken Kisatchie Morning

Memories of a camping trip to the Kisatchie Forest in Louisiana

Like lingerie, a blue slip of sky peeks
through lacy leaves at mottled forest floor.
Great branches of mighty oak dip to kiss
the thick, pliant skin of a moss green lake—
skin draped around shafts and knees of cypress,
punctured here and there by painted muzzles
with yellow-ringed eyes. A silver, arched flash
of scales—fins of iridescence slapping
wavelets into circles of reflection.
Ghostly, white shadows skimming dark water,
cutting through gauze of early-morning mist.
Surrounding silence broken only by
shrill vibration of transparent wings, by
snap and rustle of deadfall beneath my
careless step.