MARY JANE RYALS
TO MY CHILDREN ON FATHER’S DAY
AT WAKULLA SPRINGS, FLORIDA
We walk the gash of road pressing
magnolia leaves dead and crisp with our feet
into summer dirt smelling rich and rank
of forest as we float to the boat ride attraction.
On board, over water, the echo of human voices
tremors across current, smell of charcoal
orbits us in perpetual late afternoon.
Father’s Day to Father’s Day
I am always your mother.
This scenery, centuries old,
penetrates you both;
I have curled into this landscape
for forty years, watching as everything
around it seemed to oil, sink,
slide into cement. Do you see
this miracle: a springhead that pumps
400,000 gallons of water per minute
into the river, nine miles down to the gulf?
On the cruise, we drift past
wood ducks, anhingas and moorhens.
The boat’s tourists gasp at mullet jumping,
chant in unison their song-of-awe spotting alligators.
Sabal palms scrape the top of the boat,
dragonflies mate in midair.
The pickerel weed purples;
cypress trees feather their leaves.
Apple snails lay eggs on bulrushes.
My son, my daughter, we will all die
someday, but not now, not now. Look—
black egret and green heron, yellow-crown
night heron babies—exotics for me, even.
And resurrection fern, cabbage palm, swamp rose,
oh, the yellow-breasted warbler!
