my daughter put three pix on facebook
one for each day the first: two bald
eagles maybe ignoring us from a dead
tree behind the willows of the sandbar
we retreated to our tents at dusk when
mosquitoes arrived the birds were gone
at dawn the second: the rainbow after
a storm that sent us scrambling from
canoes onto a sandbar a curve hugging
the horizon more than I’ve ever seen a
parenthesis on its side the third: a full
turtle shell gutted pulled onto the sand
surrounded by three pronged tracks
a feast for cranes she labeled this one
“nature or murder?” might be both but
I also saw a broad figure 8-track of a fat
turtle leaving and reentering the river
so one made it back safely not though
the babies inside scattered shattered
shells torn pingpong balls lots of little
raccoon hand prints did a few babes
get away? after all a turtle from the
year before had lived to lay that clutch
This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2015.
