The Everglades

By Campbell McGrath

Green and blue and white, it is a flag
for Florida stitched by hungry ibises.

It is a paradise of flocks, a cornucopia
of wind and grass and dark, slow waters.

Turtles bask in the last tatters of afternoon,
frogs perfect their symphony at dusk—

in its solitude we remember ourselves,
dimly, as creatures of mud and starlight.

Clouds and savannahs and horizons,
its emptiness is an antidote, its ink

illuminates the manuscript of the heart.
It is not ours though it is ours

to destroy or preserve, this the kingdom
of otter, kingfisher, alligator, heron.

If the sacred is a river within us, let it flow
like this, serene and magnificent, forever.

Credits

*Selected for the 2024 Bloomsday Film Festival*
*Selected for the 2024 RESONANS Nature and Culture International Poetry Film Festival*

Part of the Read By Miami poem film series, produced with O, Miami.

Directed by Eric Felipe-Barkin.

Reproduced with kind permission of the poet.