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Florida
The state with the prettiest name,
The state that floats in brackish water,
Held together by mangrove roots
That bear while living oysters in clusters,
And when dead strew white swamps with skeletons,
Dotted, as
if
bombarded, with green hummocks
Like ancient cannon-balls sprouting grass.
The state full of long S-shaped birds, blue and white,
And unseen, hysterical birds who rush up the scale
Every time in a tantrum.
Tanagers embarrassed by their flashiness,
And Pelicans, whose delight it is to clown;
Who coast for fun on the strong tidal currents
In and out among the mangrove islands
And stand on the sand-bars drying their damp gold wings
On sun-lit evenings.
Enormous turtles, helpless and mild,
Die and leave their bamacred shells on the beaches,
And their large white skulls with round eye-socket<>
Twice the size of a man's.
The palm trees clatter in the stiff breeze
Like the bills of the Pelicans. The tropical rain comes down
To freshen the tide-looped strings of fading shells:
Job's Tear, the Chinese Alphabet, the scarce Junonia,
Parti-colored pectins and Ladies' Ears,
Arranged as on a gray rag of rotted calico,
The buried Indian Princess's skirt;
With these the monotonous, endless, sagging coast-line
Is delicately ornamented.
Thirty or more buzzards are drifting down, down, down,
Over something they have spotted in the swamp,
In circles, like stirred up flakes of sediment
Sinking through water.
Smoke from woods-fires filters fine blue solvents.
On stumps and dead trees the charring is like black velvet.
