Low Country Flow

June 30, 2013

Gathering ground a mile a minute

gaining time between sun waking  

and tide rising

Soul soaring on a fish hawk’s crooked wings

racing the day but losing the same

South and East with God’s eye on a seaside sparrow

Pluff mud’s perfume

Pulling

            me

down

 Marsh grass green  betraying the shallow places in between 

Resurrection fern don't need no cross to die and rise up

Just rain

Collecting Carolina names along the way

Congaree

 pushing muddy and slow

A ruin at Yemassee

piecing together some unseen whole

Combahee

and Edisto wandering wild

Salkehatchie nursing  Ashepoo in

sinuous

sacred

               flow

Back uphill past the rivers I go

North against the grain

Galloping over asphalt 

in and out 

and in and out

of rain

Racing the coming night stalking from the west

Another contest gladly lost

Life's clock impossible to reset