Okefenokee Swamp

but the cypress arms and peaches whistle
from their branches, hush the cat-calls of bull
frogs and locusts, hush the full-mouthed bristle
of dusk's laughter overhead, the tea-colored wool

of water steeped in its long violet skies,
you would never know where you are;
why,
you are the echo of a lily on the crest of that water

in the geography of a boy's
sunken, moss-torn chest
in the eternal life of the quivering southern earth
of a young, wasting soul