Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Bread On The Water

She was born in the cypress knees,

And grew up with nothing solid beneath her feet but the backs of alligators.

She didn't realize that the only reason they didn't devour her

Was because they couldn't reach her.



She liked to pretend they were gondolas,

And that she was in Venice.

Great white herons were the clouds in her Italian sky,

Cicadas her Vivaldi.



When she grew up, she was a woman nearly always alone,

Blind to kindness--

Even her own.

"See how beautiful their teeth are," she would say of the alligators.

"Triangular, like the points of stars."

To hear her tell it,

They were constellations,

Not glinty-eyed fat-bellied reptiles floating like driftwood in the filthy water.



When they needed it, she would tend to them like a mother,

Binding their wounds,

Sharing her own food.

Our Lady of The Gators,

Praying in the middle of a thunderstorm,

For their hurts to heal.



She was born in the cypress knees,

And looking up into the canopy, she believed herself to be very small,

Hardly there at all.

On the day that the ranger from the Parks Department arrived in a noisy craft that looked like a giant window fan,

She could not speak to her;

She had only ever heard the hissing of the gators when they squabbled.

The woman with the yellow patch on her sleeve may as well have been speaking Martian when she said,

"Oh honey. What has been goin' on here?"



On the day that she left,

Strapped into a seat on the giant window fan,

The alligators only blinked impassively or grinned from a patch of harsh afternoon light,

Indifferent right down to their rotten green bones.



Months later,

Marveling even in half-sleep at the softness of her lover's enfolding arms,

Tears rolled sideways across her cheek and the bridge of her nose in the darkness.

No war bride ever felt as displaced nor as happy.

Signora,

Our Lady Of The Alligators,

It will be all right now.

You have come home, like a little swallow;

Like a silkworm on a white mulberry leaf;

You have floated here, not as the gators do,

But, sweet girl,

As bread on the water.
___________

37 comments:

  1. I wonder why the ranger thought she had to "save" her? Why not leave well enough alone?

    Let her be who she is, where she is.

    Dammit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just don't know what to say except I love your writing.

    sweet...bittersweet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ungrateful gators! Loved this poem, Shay. Like a duck out of water...

    ReplyDelete
  4. This made me think of the little girl that was left for dead in the swamp recently, and she was found alive. Thanks for the link I enjoyed Tabitha bird too!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I could hear the roar of the airboat, carrying her away from home. If ever there was proof that a wild thing didn't need 'saving'...

    This is fierce.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Again, loss for words, but I love yours.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Wow, what an ending! I want to see this one in a picture book (but then I always say that about your poems!).

    ReplyDelete
  8. I'm Baaaack....did you miss me, I missed you and this is the very reason why...this poem and the essence of what it is that we give without thinking to those who would eat us, but when we are gone...we miss and feel lost...oh i know this feeling and these tears I shed while re-reading are as real as the Signora of the Alligators I hope she finds her way home.
    Love you sister.
    g

    ReplyDelete
  9. So much richness in your words...




    Aloha from Hawaii


    Comfort Spiral

    ReplyDelete
  10. She rescued the Ranger...and she did it all without saying a word :-)

    ReplyDelete
  11. rescue, exquisite in form and words! but did she need rescue i wonder...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Well, it's 6:30 a.m. Monday morning and I'm crying like a baby.

    ReplyDelete
  13. A mesmerizing, fantastical story that packs an emotonal punch.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Wouldn't bread on the water sink or get scooped up and eaten? The ending sounds romantic and poetic, but it speaks of being devoured to me. A delicious snack just waiting to be consumed by alligators, fish, birds, and people.

    Funny how she gave them everything, even her soul, and yet they were "Indifferent right down to their rotten green bones."

    I think someone born in the cypress knees doesn't exist just as an element of her environment. She is her own habitat; so even when removed and replanted, she will bloom.

    I like this girl and her wild imagination. And I like you and yours.

    Love the gondola section, particularly "cicadas her Vivaldi."

    I think she was plucked up from living on the "wrong side of the tracks" (or the bayou) and dropped into the arms of another probable alligator, somewhere in the suburbs. But perhaps that's another tale.

    rosemarymint.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  15. excellent story, fascinating write.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I'm such a fan of your magical realism, and this is exactly why. What a mythological tale of heroine you have spun here. I feel sorry for the left behind gators, foul green bones and shining white teeth and all.

    ReplyDelete
  17. A terrific write! "Cicadas her Vivaldi" ...my favourite line.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Oh you tell such a beautiful bittersweet catch-at-one's-heart story, kiddo. This one unrolled so beautifully. Poignant, the grateful tears.....so tender "like a little swallow; like a silkworm on a white mulberry leaf". Sigh. Pure beauty.

    ReplyDelete
  19. "Triangular, like the points of stars."

    To hear her tell it,

    They were constellations,"


    I love how you describe the teeth like this and am mystified by the uniqueness in your descriptions throughout! I really enjoyed this:
    Tears rolled sideways across her cheek and the bridge of her nose in the darkness.

    "No war bride ever felt as displaced nor as happy."

    I'm so glad you shared this!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Our Lady of the Gators! incredible poem.wonderfully narrated.very powerful and moving.

    ReplyDelete
  21. so beautiful...to see the world with tenderness and not even recognize it in one's self...
    "She was born in the cypress knees" oh and that line..."cypress knees" YOU are a master artist, yes you are!

    ReplyDelete
  22. On second thought, the alligators are probably just men.

    rosemarymint.wordpress.com

    ReplyDelete
  23. Definitely one I would like to see turned into a short. Great story, anyt ime anyone is born in the cypress knees...it has to be a great story. Just lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Amazing stuff! She reminds me of that song, "Polk Salad Annie."

    ReplyDelete
  25. Another St Creola-like visitation, or like the Succubus one, where the little girl is finally valued, where the past becomes just so much background, back issues, and the new pages are written tenderly, in the heart of happiness. Just leaves me sighing...like watching a mother animal bed down and comfort her young with that boundless, selfless, love. *sigh*

    ReplyDelete
  26. What a marvelous piece...I am in awe. I stumble through my own writing and find I cannot create such as this.

    ReplyDelete
  27. It's almost the bizarro version of Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne", but with predators and sharp teeth. Odd in the best sense of the word, almost eerie.

    ReplyDelete
  28. wow. fantastic read. I love the tale and the details in here, like the triangularity of the teeth, the seed you planted early about not being able to reach here, the cicadas song, the impassive blinking of the gators…fantastic job. thanks

    ReplyDelete
  29. This poem carried me along from start to finish. Your imaginative and creative writing is such a gift.

    ReplyDelete
  30. oh honey, what HAS been going on here? that's the heart of it, isn't it? love this.

    ReplyDelete
  31. This left me with one thoight...more, please!

    ReplyDelete
  32. ...and that probably left you with one: Proofread!

    ReplyDelete
  33. The cicadas her vivaldi ... Our Lady of The Gators,

    Fabulous words, imaginative rendering... how do you do it? and yes, she did need saving. Those gators had (have) no heart.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Oh! Oh! Oh! It takes my breath away...this is perfection!

    ReplyDelete

Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?