… another bird cackles in the mangroves, or flies just over my head, broad beak silver. Mullet leap out of the water. In the sky sometimes are little white airplanes. There’s no point in going inside because the morning breeze (after evening rain) is cooling, and the large family of egrets on the opposite shore stays there for me, letting me rest my binoculars on them as long as I like.
So sit here and let it gather, the pelican circus, and watch it revolve around you. Sanibel built a few houses, like this one, by the narrow inlets to the gulf, so that all day long you can settle on your deck and let it flow – the alligator water, the palm-shivering wind, the raptors and the passerines. They whistle about you their spontaneous cries.
January 4th, 2019 at 11:10AM
you had me thinking of the palm tree at the end of the mind but one of my favorite bits of poetry is:
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measures destined for her soul.