Crossing the Swamp

Here is the endless

wet thick

cosmos, the center

Line

of everything — the nugget

5 of dense sap, branching

vines, the dark burred

faintly belching

bogs. Here

is swamp, here

10

is struggle,

closure —

pathless, seamless,

peerless mud. My bones

knock together at the pale

15

joints, trying

for foothold, fingerhold,

mindhold over

such slick crossings, deep

hipholes, hummocks*

20

that sink silently

into the black, slack

earthsoup. I feel

not wet so much as

painted and glittered

25 with the fat grassy

mires, the rich

and succulent marrows

of earth — a poor

dry stick given

30

one more chance by the whims

of swamp water — a bough

that still, after all these years,

could take root,

sprout, branch out, bud —

35

make of its life a breathing

palace of leaves.