Traveling with Bartram
wandering the immense Alachua savanna
to enter thick-wooded hammock finding
tall live oaks laced with Spanish moss
shimmering within thin shafts of sunlight
stirred by gentle breezes cutting thick humidity
where slash pines stretch their canopies
above a fire-scarred understory saw palmetto
perched high on sandy ridges underground rivers
rising to the surface pellucid water darkened
with leached tannins a sheet flow over bogs
marshes a confusing labyrinth bataeu creeping
silently past cypress domes smooth rounded knees
defining edges of solid ground where egrets
strut about in the shallows foraging for snails
darting minnows & green frogs sheltering beneath
drifting hyacinth islands of lavender flowers
“these silent purveyors of sorrow and forgiveness”
pollen dusting still waters amid algae blooms
attracting bees & butterflies colorful pollinator
damp heat seething as insects click & buss & chirp
swamps a growing cacaphony of croaking & hissing
hidden gators lurking nearby or slithering from
hidden lairs into a domain of rattlesnakes & water moccasins
soon come raw barking landing calls of circling blue herons
descending out of a cerulean sky to stand sentinel
time stands still here nothing ever seems to change
in this land etched by the movement of waters
why should it everything is in order as it should be
just as when Bartram traveled here among the Seminoles
his bark canoe taking him deeper into a feast of flowers
Seagulls
it is difficult not to watch seagulls fascinating & beautiful this morning above a cove during a receding tide
I sit alone & watch as they soar along the sea’s foamy margins sluicing quietly through an early evanescing mist wings beating a cadence at 6/8 time then slowing to half time quarter time alighting softly to perch on guano-stained shore rocks
these triumphant sentinels on breakwater stonework a council of elders facing into the wind on the rotting ridge poles of ancient fish houses
perhaps these are Chekhov’s birds their freedom of flight challenged perhaps Poe’s more sinister gulls delivering vectors of yellow fever or those in A Gordon Pym narratives passing over the Grampus dropping pieces of uneaten human flesh on its deck
or perhaps Jamie Wyeth’s seagulls representing the seven deadly sins codified by Saint Thomas Aquinas subjects of Dante Chaucer Bosch Marlowe & Brecht their vulgar beaks threatening greedy eyes reservoirs of wickedness nasty & cruel & filled with jealousies malevolence in their postured silences seething with evil ignominy
or perhaps they are only a frenzied flock of gulls high above me & rising on thermals to kite searching eagerly for scraps finally banking out of view beyond the reach of land
The Secrets of Snow
moonglow illuminates the day’s snowfall
in this place now cloaked in nightime
darkness landscapes settling into whiteness
their edges snuggled against houses
barns & trees snow clinging to branches
rattled by the crystalline gusts of wind
snow continues to fall & drift quietly
throughout the night can I trust it
to keep secret who & what has passed
in the dead of night disappearing
into brumous woods its mysteries
heighten in the depth of a winter chill
moon fickled orb reflecting off
low clouds & new-fallen snow
transiting a star-filled sky just a sliver
of light neither waxing nor waning
oriented to where it will set & disappear
a new day dawning with a rising sun
Steven B. Rogers is originally from Chicago and is a forensic human rights historian based in Washington, DC. He is the editor of A Gradual Twilight: An Appreciation of John Haines (CavanKerry, 2004), and his essays, reviews, and poems have appeared in earlier issues of Gargoyle, and in several other publications. He and his wife are longtime residents of historic Mount Rainier, Maryland. They summer on Monhegan Island in Maine, and in the central prairie country of Florida during the winter. Aspiring to a Full Consent: New and Selected Poems, 1971-2024 will be published in 2025.