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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4461 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention In the Mangroves Denis Garrison At the edge of dawn in the mangrove swamp, dark trees go green against the rosy east. Low light throws each trunk and branch and knee into warm relief. The river fills with light. Along a sloping bank, alligators start to stir, their blood moving with the shadows' slide. In the treetops, vultures preen and spread their dampened wings in homage to the sun. To crisscrossing ripples, a breaching carp adds more, and its returning slap echoes from the shore. As a breeze lifts and moves across the current, an old rowboat slowly swings an arc on its chain, tethered to an iron ring embedded in a weathered tree. The rusty links complain softly in the strain. The skiff is empty; it has been for some time. Its hand-hewn boards are dark and mossy green. An old cane pole, all bent and bowed, is wedged between the stern and the crumbling plank seat and a filament dangles and twirls in the breeze. On the boat's gunwale sit several cormorants. And the shadows slide, and the breeze rises. |
