Something Happens

Inspiration

Dorothy Allison:

Place requires context. Is is responsive? Does it notice me? Or is it porcelain, pristine, and just ignoring my passage through?

... Place is where the "I" goes. Place is what that "I" looks at, what it doesn't look at. Is it happy? Is it sad? Is it afraid? Is it curious?    


Henry David Thoreau:

You learn that if you sit down in the woods and wait, something happens.

Something Happens
by Laurie J. Kemp

If you sit down in the slough and wait,
something happens
     above you,
          around you,
               inside you

The swamp lives in all its glory
messy, beautiful
     bugs buzz, flit, and flutter
          birds bask, swoop, and soar
branches break,
     crack and criss-cross

Gators slowly glide and stalk
eyeballs just breaking the surface,

turtles line up along a leaning log
     necks reaching up to the sun

one anhinga dives down for a meal
     below the surface
While another spreads his velvety black wings

They all know we are here, don't they?

If you walk through the slough and wait,
something happens
     above you,
          around you,
               inside you

the ripples of the water
the rustling of the ferns
the calling of the birds

the whirring of the insects
the plunking of the fish
the oxygen in the air

all of it
breathing life
into my body
into my soul

I am alive.