22 c i m a r r o n r e v i e w

S i d n e y Wa d e

Witness Tree Junction, Rochelle, FL

We walk the dry path—it hasn’t rained for months—through pine stand, hammock, dessicated swamp.The still-hot sun is veiled by merciful clouds.Hundreds of robins flush—it’s a sharp-shinnedhawk, while far from this transitive landscapeappalling darkness prepares for its pompand circumstances. There must be a mapin the lush, ever-vernal grace of languagethat might help us emerge from the gloom,though I can’t hear it now. Old sounds: shroudedwhispers, in tongues, the hum between loveand the battered earth’s bruised chorus.A golden orb-weaver hangs in her loomof evanescence and calmly observes us.

November 9, 2016