Walking through a nature preserve
like Wakodahatchee Wetlands you
must always keep a sharp eye.

The birds are everywhere, they are
unavoidable and even the alligators,
imagining themselves coy are

soon enough easily recognized,
snouts appear just above the surface
wary eyes scanning the shore.

Here you are also surrounded
by poems, but they are far more
able to hide, among the eggs

the wood stork carefully tends,
in the purple iridescence
of the gallinule, trailing behind

the uplifting wings of the great
blue heron as she lifts skyward,
and in the spray of feathers

the snowy egrets dangle always
drawing our eyes like a bride’s
diaphanous veil, but we, at

a loss for words in the midst
of all of this, cannot see them
awaiting us to give them flight