There is more here than mist, <br />duckweed and spatterdocks. <br />A bowfin, three-feet long, <br />lurks amid the stalks <br /> <br />of cattails, preying on <br />a school of yellow bass. <br />A pickerel prowls amid <br />brown tamaracks and grass. <br /> <br />A snapper with musket shot <br />still lodged inside its tail, <br />devours a bloated frog, <br />exposing only its shell. <br /> <br />And at the water’s edge, <br />a towering black gum, <br />old as the liberty bell, <br />watches deaf and dumb. <br /> <br />Its leaves soon will turn red <br />for the three hundredth autumn: <br />a leaf for every brave <br />buried at the bottom.<br /><br />Leo Yankevich<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/swamp-4/
