in a quiet place

The warm weather inviting us outside

The extra hour of sunlight close to the tropics

The visible night sky expanse of stars

The subtle sounds audible in this quiet place

What I like most about being here

Even if there were not so many birds to see

Frequenting the cypress swamps

Interlaced with miles of boardwalks.

Where the gentle gulf water ripples the sand

The shorebirds gather searching the wrack

Little disturbed by the humans here collecting shells

As wintering over species mingle with the locals.

The tidal flats and lagoons that host a feeding frenzy

The waders and diving birds and raptors swooping down

All catching fish in a great display of hunger for life 

Feeding in the minutes before ebb turns to flow.

Alone on the trails through the pine flatwoods

Where seldom another person may be seen or heard

We walk for hours taking in our surroundings

Letting the expanse of space expand our sense.

I am a quiet person by nature speaking softly

Content to be still in a moment of silence

Revealing what exists behind the commotion

Masked by machine noise and all that talking.

Sanibel December 10, 2019

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Six Mile Cypress Slough December 9, 2019

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right and wrong

Should it matter to me that this land was taken

In another lifetime before I was born

Stolen from the Native Americans brutally forced off?

Should it matter to me that African people were stolen away

Chained and lashed and worked to death here 

If I was not their slave master overseer?

That history lurks in the white psyche as a fearsome truth

With or without recognition of the position we inherited

We whose not so distant ancestors were the perpetrators.

After all the denial and excuses and apologies are done

That sordid past remains a fact with consequences today

Begging the question of how to right this wrong.

Mostly we whites live our separate lives in our separate spaces

Seldom confronted with the reality that people of color face

Perhaps mindless of our advantages of race and class

Perhaps fully aware and determined to hold on to it

Opposed to reparations or any kind of compensation

As if acknowledgement takes anything from us. 

As much as the racism of white nationalists is obvious

The whites who think they are not racist but go along

They also perpetuate the injustice and oppression.

But more now support equal rights and self determination

Than what I remember from when I was young

And I see more people happily commingle in public.

Every advance meets with reaction trying to turn it back

Until a new push forward overcomes the resistance

Sustaining progress takes persistence.