Amid a Cypress Swamp.

June 26, 2016

I've been thinking about how to end this poem for a while now.  It's one of those little things that pops into my head spontaneously and flows along easily to a certain point and then nothing I write seems to belong.

Amid the cypress swamp knobby nodes spring up,
Defiant little gnomes stand rebellious
Against a spongy descent into midnight soup.

Weeping willows wave, sag and droop.
Spanish moss sagging in the westward breeze does sway.
While below amid the branches sparrows swoop and play.

From secret spaces, damp and dark places,
Wild and winged things creep.
Their houses, in the murky weep, secret they do keep.

Crawling, sloshing sprawling over root,
Swimming, sailing, stalking in the sub terrain slime.
Spying from under log and covered in grime.

With worried steps, travellers timidly wade,
Sweaty palms push away leafy fronds,
For who knows what scaly thing unseen lies in wait,
One wrong choice and it's too late!


And that's where it drops off, maybe because I feel like I've been stuck in the swamp for a while now, afraid to take another step because the ground might give way on me or something might snap at me out of the murk.  Afraid to step forward or backwards to find myself in a worse position than I am now.  Maybe it's just that muddled part of life where you're old enough to see things aren't shaping up the way you thought they would.  Sometimes you have to step out on faith and hope that it will be enough to hold you up.

When you're standing at the precipice of adulthood, the water seems so clear and the path looks so straight. You're made of strong timber and nothing is going to chop you down.  Then something major comes along like a water buffalo.  That cleanly marked out highway you've been speeding down is barred by a massive road block.  You're forced onto a gravelled sidewalk full of weeds and you can't see past the next hundred meters or a bog where even the spongy ground beneath your feet feels like it could betray you.

A younger me thought jungle path would head back to the flat highway and I would just jump back on and run all that much faster to make up for lost time.  I had always been the quick kid, on the field and in the classroom.

Instead, the turns of life lead to new roads, some clear for a while until they become so overgrown they seem impassable.  I have to find a way through a thicket or change course once more.   It's an adventure!

I've thought for a while when things were rough and everywhere I looked my peers seemed to have smooth sailing and sunny skies.  It's an illusion.  Everyone has highways, narrow mountain passes, wilderness and swamps to cross at some point in their lives, no matter how easy life looks to an outside.

Hey, wetlands can be good.  They act like water filters for other areas.  Perhaps like the water, I am being purified as I am poured out.  Maturity and wisdom do come with age.