1

"Did you see what

they're building down

there?" Russ asks

saying hello from

his new van

2

Kayaks unloaded

Bill waits on the bulwark

nautical map spread wide

a new channel to find

Chub Slough

3

five hops up the

boat-ramp ~ brown head

high ~ a grackle from

across the Lower Wekiva

makes her landing

Katie's

4

5

long stretching

young doe at water's

edge ~ necks down and

tugs up on fresh greens

without minding

58

red wings

in the rushes and

57

face of dancing

mirrors

6

face into

those thousand

palm-Sunday fronds

the arches and the lilts

glances of glee

running up

each shaft

56

a single wild

turkey pecks among

the roots in the hydric

hammock ~~ someone's

lot i suppose ~ next to

the first house

7

irridescence at

both ends ~ bluette my

damselfly ~ alights gently

just hitching a ride on

my knuckle

8

float (click)

without motion to

the curlew toeing the mud

a sudden whumpy lift

(click) ~ bold the blur of white

red-orange ahead and

orange aft

55

great blue

tight behind a bank of

spadderdock ~ white-feathered

throat-pouch throttling

in the late sunlight

all the time

we pass

9

up-

streaming

school of six-inch

silvers ~ only one has

a triangle of fire

for tail

10

around the

bend of sight a large

commotion of black feathers

at the scene ~ ~ ~ one primary

a footlong black kayak

with thin white

shutters

54

bullet-formed

little blue or green

speeds downstream

flying without

wings

11

look down

straight ~ large fat-

faced fish ~ head from

an owl ~ gliding in

silence over

sandbeds

53

a-

head a

hundred yards

upstream ~ the double

knobbed snout with

a fifteen-foot trail

draws a line

thin

12

high banks

of brush ~ swamp palms

fronting tall stands of riverine

roses ~~ waiting for the

star rush to

bloom

13

a young tree

just split at the knees

still ~ never quite lost touch

the toppled trunk lies not

balanced across a narrow

point ~ ~ a top-

heavy T

14

behind a

bend ~ without

a notice ~ a large black-

bird repeatedly pounds

a root with a white

object the size of

my thumb-

top

52

five and

forty skimmers

spreading out from

bow to summer in

all directions

15

GATE

"Beauty

is momentary

in the mind…in the flesh

it is immortal"

Wallace Stevens

16

no fish

beclawed

silent and sleek

as an owl ~ a black soft-

ness moves ahead of us a

white underbelly and

striped face ~ down

winging the

river

51

along the

bottom a four-pound

turtle emerges downstream

from the bed of a

stingaree Bill

pursues

17

sneaking up on a

sleeping gator ~ six feet

of leather ridges ~ Bill

readies my under-

water camera

18

sing the

purple-red anthers

of three string lilies

beside a young

hickory be-

daubed in

lichen

50

in my

right ear a

distant pileated

calls down

the day's

end

19

without a rattle

in long sweeping slights

the kingfisher swoops out

at the right ~ out of sight

yielding perch

49

at a rest

stop ~ large

green leaves sun-

bathing ~ casual

reflections of

river turning

20

far back

left ~ in a sun-

patch clearing

scarlet hibiscus ~ a bloom

not alone but single

taller than all the

understory

48

GATE

we

talk of

twin mounds

other mortalities

banning evolution

Pat and Jean

river as

spirit

21

we stop

ashore amid squawks

from black vultures ~ in the

trees across ~ they drop

down from branch

to branch

22

walking

only on roots

every step it seems

a purple spiral

uplifting a

pickerel-

weed

23

campin out

on the high bend

above Blackwater a

young couple has brought

fire to the river

and cooks

47

in a log

lying flat over water

and under ~ a hollow

the shape of a football

once an arm-socket ~ now

24

baby gator

head ~ frog-sized

moves slowly out of shore-

muck ~ back feet churn-

ing like a duck

no tail

46

to the east

Buddha Thor

grumbles and growls

in the joys of his

airborne river

above

25

boy-again

Bill ~ papparazzi

paddling into the brush

wary gatorling pinned

a moment ~ by

a Rascal

kayak

26

GATE

"the joy

of all the

beings is

in be-

ing"

gary snyder

45

wide banks

of dollarweed and

spadderdock jostling for

sunbright in a snake

of wavelets

27

after

patches of

breeze ~ the cool

a sudden a heavy

sauna sweat

28

giving

himself away

with a loud raucous

calling ~ deep in the

brush ~ a solitary

limpkin

29

at

the point

of return of an

offstream jaunt

the raucous per-

fume of the

dead end

swamp

30

below the en-

trance of Blackwater

Creek schools of mullet

cross sand patches in a

tea-brown world

44

three

retired couples

lunching under a red roof

pontoons slurping

natives not

quite

31

we land for

lunch ~ Bill finds

light as a limpkin feather

it curls ~ filling my fingers

browns and blacks

like muck

32

a second snail

a perfect shirt button

tightly spiraled in a

hundred cells ~ many

now transparent

43

up-

ended

wider than high

a wall of oak-roots unsoiled

like a cancanner's skirt

showing river

rump

33

grand

cypresses in the

making ~ eight inches

out of root-muck ~ already

stronger than fire

a pair of

pumps

34

as from a

high platform a

startling bellywhopper down-

stream ~ ~ ~ a long wake sinks

ten strokes ~ we both hear heavy

the woods for bear

35

a pair

of fishers just

talkin to us ~ "Not

much. Jus throwin em

back, ya know."

bright wishes

no regrets

42

catching a Lower

Wekiva rhythm ~ a single

snag ~ bops up and down

miming a wooden arm

incessantly

41

leaving

the slough a

giant blue startles up

in slow motion to the

river she takes the

highest possible

opposite

perch

36

looking

up Chub Slough

a narrow meander

along and between banks

of watercress and other

graces ~ a sculptured

riverscape

40

looking straight

into a long hollow

log-face ~ cradle for a

bromeliad spray as

big as my

basketball

37

GATE

the strong

the weak

the grave

the free

the electric

a string

38

palm tree snag

blocking our way

one small arch in the bridge

i stretch arms and head

low ~ out over the bow

a gritty bark scrapes my

39

easing out of

Chub a dozen eely

gars gambol and wrestle

twitching in combos

in a black-brown

soup