March 5-25 1993 / South Florida and Belize: Looking for Bitterns, or What's Hidden in Plain Sight
Wandering the Tropical Trails of Florida and Belize
Part 2 - More Bliss in South Florida
7 March 1993 - Everglades City, Florida - Ivey House B and B
At dinner last night, the young dull-eyed waiter says to me, "Hi. I'm Mark and I'll be your waiter tonight." Feeling lively and full of laughter, I smile broadly at him and say, "Surely that's a joke!" He laughs nervously and says, "What's that, ma'am?" Poor guy. So I leave him alone, respond solemnly, earnestly, to his inquiries during the meal. I'm looking around for anyone interesting, but no luck. I don't mind.
This morning I drive off in the dark--I can hardly bear to sleep here!--past Rowdy Bend, past the beautiful river of grass. I stop to take pictures of sunrise. I leave the windows open to breathe the rush of sweet air.
To get to Shark Valley in the northern part of the park, I must pass through parts of Homestead itself. It is so terrible. It seems like a ghost town. All the little businesses are boarded up, the hopeful "improvements" of plantings, walkways, fanciful streetlights, which we saw three years ago, are abandoned now. The inlaid tiles in the streets are cracked and dirty. People have suffered so, here. I want so much to take pictures but I don't like to gawk. I take a few through the windshield at stoplights. On the other side of town, more piles of--debris? Surely desks, mattresses, boats, chairs, washers, bicycles, cupboards, broken into pieces--this isn't debris. These are the fabric of people's lives. The objects that define them. All laid out neatly in great mounds, to be--what?
Just outside of town, I see what. On the left side of the road is a huge mountain chain of piles of discarded, wrecked objects, all arrayed in a large field: The Dump. Perhaps they will eventually cover it and make a hilly park of it, The Park of Broken Lives.
Easily I find my way north and then west, to Shark Valley. The gates at the entrance haven't even opened yet. When they do, I drive in, rent a bike, and I'm on my way.
What we have here, it turns out, is a paved fifteen mile bike trail, through the great coastal prairie realm, vast open grasses in fields of water, a few palms here and there. I'm delighted. I ride so slowly that it takes me an hour to go two miles.
The quiet is intense. Others are riding, but because I go so slowly I'm never with them.
Two young men have found a large alligator in the water right by the path! It's exciting, stimulating in a way, to be so close to him. I take his picture, with respect, as a mark of respect, and wait courteously to point him out to the next arrivals.
In the reeds and water I see a ravishing purple gallinule. She walks delicately about on large lily pads, turning them over with her bright yellow and red bill. Her feathers glow violet. Above the red and yellow bill I see the pale blue patch on her forehead. Why should there be such a bird? She's found what she's looking for: from under a lily pad she pulls what looks like a fat cup-shaped bud or pod of some sort. She clips it neatly and carries it off behind some reeds. Enchanting...
A small boy rode by, pumping his garish child's bike furiously. "Mom! Mom! I saw this bird! It was all purple and blue and red and yellow--!" Mom does not even slow down.
Just past the purple gallinule was the other kind, brownish, plain. I was proud I could recognize it and name it--common or Florida gallinule. I have a brief memory of being in the canoe with Tom, and him pointing one out, on my right. That was a long time ago.
I'm very lucky that I met my friend Tom. A most important and life-changing gift he has given me is this gift of Florida, the tropics.
Shortly after I find my own gator, and there's no one around. I find him by myself, and I tell him so as I take his picture, he lying calmly in the water. Then: another, his head up a small culvert. More! more of them. One out of the water almost on the bike path--what do I do? I watch him--not too large--for a while. He's just a few feet from where I have to ride. I back up carefully, and get a good start, speed past him. He doesn't move a muscle, nor even look at me.
Mostly, though, I ride in slow bliss, looking to left and right, seeing the birds and plants and alligators, the reeds, water, sky, the flat, the far distant flat horizon. A couple has found a deer in the middle distance. I get off my bike and walk softly toward them. We admire their deer with happiness. "Other people don't even look," the man says in amazement. Just then a small group rides by, and not a one casts a glance in the direction of the deer, nearly invisible in the brown grass. The three of us look at each other and smile. They ask if I saw the big snake a ways back. I'm disappointed I didn't.
I pick up my pace just a little--I have other things to do today, and I don't want to drive in the dark. But up ahead--what's that? I come to a quick stop. It's a baby alligator, just out of the water. All babies are appealing, and baby gators too. They have a jaunty, perky look to them, so bright eyed and alert, so thin and sharp. I get ready to take his picture, but zip! off he goes, grunting his high little baby's grunt. I hustle off; Mother may have told him not to talk to strangers.
Reeds thicken along one side. Bittern habitat, I think. Miraculously, he is there. I spotted him. I turned on the bittern search pattern, and found him, motionless, looking to the sky, on the other side of the water, his striped body and long neck and bill turning him into a clump of reeds. I am so proud. Nobody showed him to me, I knew where to look, and what to look for. I'm not even sure what the nature of this pleasure is.
That which is hidden in plain view. Able, and willing, to see bitterns. That's what I want my life to be.
At the halfway point of the ride is an observation tower, curling up like a snail. Up there, we can look down to brown water and see alligators swimming slowly and sunning. We can see to the horizon. Surely there is nothing more in the world than this yellow, brown, pale sea.
It's hotter now, and I'm ready to return. I pedal briskly. This part passes through marly water, that peculiar shallow limey weak flow of this great and unique geological landscape.
Ooooh!! There's a very BIG gator On the bike path!! A couple is watching him. Amazingly, this gator, about seven or eight feet long, has caught a quite large turtle and is trying to eat it. The turtle sits in the gator's jaw, his head and feet extended. Long, long pause. The gator tosses the turtle up and recatches him in his jaw, trying, I guess, to get him in better position for swallowing. The turtle waits, passively. We watch, cheering on the turtle, discussing the slow-motion battle. Others arrive on their bikes. The story is told. The gator tosses the turtle some more. His head is down the gator's throat. Nope, too big. We cheer. He drops the turtle. More cheers as turtle hustles. Gator gropes and grabs, misses, misses--GRIP! got him again, and into the water with him. We hear, distinctly, a loud CRUNCH--but still no eating. We can't see the turtle. Is he free? mortally wounded? Gator waits motionless. Other people, arriving, are told, You missed it. The gator makes as if to come out of the water, hungry, and we scatter.
Back at the Visitors' Center, I tell this story, and of the bittern, to an interested ranger. To my delight, he finds both stories equally pleasing. Encouraged, I share my snake egg and bird colony stories of yesterday, and John's and my bear-on-the-trail story of a few years ago, and he likes them, too. He recommends the walk at Fakahatchee Strand, in Big Cypress. I'd planned on it anyway, but I'm glad to hear it's good.
I eat my sandwich in the shade, my bottom hurting, my hands sunburned, and my mind and heart satisfied. Down the road now to Big Cypress.
I get gas at Miccosukee Indian Gas. A very handsome Indian waits on me. His dark brown hair flows elegantly nearly to his waist. He seems literate and gracious and I enjoy looking at him,
Following the ranger's instructions, I find Big Cypress Bend, and the boardwalk into it. It's a grand place indeed, dark, watery, grey, brown, green. Giant cypresses rise on either side. I try to imagine thousands of square miles filled in this way. Ferns and arrowhead plants grow in the tannic water, and there are small yellow and white flowers. How can this great tangle be meaningful? There is a bald eagle high on a tree; it's pointed out to me and I in turn show it to others. I enjoy this and am good at it, helping people spot him. I find my very own pileated woodpecker, an enormous red and black and white creature with a huge bill. I read and learn that his tattoo is irregular, and sure enough: thuk-thuk. Thuk. Thuk-thuk-thuk. Thuk-thuk. To test my ability to find at a small scale, I look intently at the nearest tree trunk, without my glasses so as to get my eye right down there. The inside of the tree seems to be filled with ants. Their tiny brown bodies appear at every crevice and opening of the trunk. They walk up and down, exchanging antennae taps. Some walk with abdomens held up high, so they look like half-ants. This must be to avoid leaving a scent trail. I shall have to find out about this behavior.
At the end of the boardwalk is a small platform by a dark pond. In the pond are some baby alligators, and their mother. There are herons and warblers and woodpeckers. There are the ubiquitous Germans. In the water is a large banded watersnake, only partly visible. He is pointed out to me by a young Indian who is serving as a sort of guide and story-teller. He must come from the Indian village right by the park entrance. I converse with him.
I also have a warm and intense conversation with a German man, my age, maybe older. He is very quick, very rich in thought--we speak of Africa--he spent time in Zimbabwe--of the natural places, of ignorance. I like him immensely. I tell the story of my alligator bite. The Indian says, You have to stick your finger in your ear, right after, to cure it. ?? The German man enjoys me and my enthusiasms and says, And you've told the story thirty times already! I laugh and tell him how excited they got in the emergency room, over my bite. I'd like to make friends with him, but I leave instead. Kindred spirits find each other out so quickly.
I find Everglades City, and my bed and breakfast. Turns out a person who runs kayak trips is there too, someone whose mailing list we're on. A couple of pleasant young women as well, and we all go out to dinner. I'm feeling so well, it's not hard for me to socialize in this slight manner.
After we get back, I do not write; instead I read a little, and fall asleep in peace and grace, here in this easy, soft place.
8 March - Bonita Springs, Florida
I could have gone kayaking today, but it would have been alone, and I'm pretty sure that's not smart. The person here at Ivey House seemed astonished when I said this, but I know I'm right. Hiking--here--is different. Boating--not a good idea. So instead I ride the sedate Park Service boat, into--barely into- the Ten Thousand Islands area of the park, on the Gulf of Mexico. The well-programmed guide, not very enthusiastic but well-programmed, showed us manatees and many nesting ospreys, including some young, quite close. I have now a lot of pictures of osprey, probably more than I want. But it's hard to resist taking pictures of animals when they are very close.
We saw a man in a white kayak, paddling slowly among the mangrove islands. I envied him. The tangle of mangrove roots reaches into the water like hundreds of thousands of intertwined arms. If I were in a kayak, I would come close, close to those arms, and join them. I could paddle amidst the wheezing manatees. But that's okay, I like saving up new things to do here.
Somehow this seems to be the part of the Everglades the Park Service forgot. That's good, the fewer people here, the better. Back at the dock, I talk to a ranger about hiking. Everybody always tells me there isn't any, but there is. I think they're thinking boardwalk. I do have my Florida Trail maps, and there is one, a ways back down the road. I ask if he knows about its condition. Wet, very wet, he says. I try to call up an image of this, and me walking alone on it. I'm afraid of snakes, and I'm also afraid of wild pigs. I guess I'm afraid of these animals because I don't know their behavior, what I look like to them, what they would do about me. I'm so torn! I want to give myself experiences, but I also am reasonable. Then the ranger tells about another place, shows it to me on the map. It's called Jane's Scenic Memorial Drive, a dirt road, into Fakahatchee Strand, and it's got trailheads off it, only he doesn't call them that.
I find it with no trouble. It's wonderful. The road isn't dirt, really. It's gleaming white, hard pan and shell. I love it that I'm gonna return my car all filthy. I love dirt. I love sweat and dirt. I hate glass, walls, doors, curtains, shades, air conditioning, plastic, perfumes, strictures...
I go as slowly as I can. A few cars come in the other direction. I keep my eyes peeled for trails. Yes, here's something. A metal gate, a sign: No cars. Foot traffic only. OK, this is good, and beyond the gate, a grassy path or track. Oh, I guess this is a "swamp buggy road" that I've been seeing references to. But this one's high and dry.
I slip past the gate.
The yellowy grass is long and thick. I watch where I put my feet.
The trees on either side of me are low. Beyond them, tall brilliant green cypress trees. The cypress are the clear green of waterplants. They are waterplants, after all.
I walk exceeding slow. I listen. I look for birds' movements in the low trees. I am learning I think by a kind of osmosis, a direct bathing in the fluid of these places. Their content and its import processes somewhere within me. I don't know how to describe this. It's like dancers or--sculptors?-- learning on the body, within the body, directly. Engaging the body's intelligence without intermediary of words or other symbols. Perhaps that is what we mean by experience.
I am learning to find birds, now. It is easier in these low trees than our tall ones at home, which ruin one's neck to look up into.
There is also water, swamp, to either side. Beyond it, mystery, impenetrable without damage by such as me. I should like to talk to an Indian about this. How one might slide through here like an animal, like a snake.
I'm--alone here. The birds call. I listen and try to search them out. I see many warblers but I've given up on them. Still I can relish finding and watching them, their intimate secrets visible through my beloved binoculars. Never, ever will I forget the first moment I looked through them at a bird. It was at Eastham, as I sat on our front porch and watched some chickadees in the locust tree a few feet above my head. Idly I used the binoculars to look at one, raising my glasses so as to have a more comfortable look. The shock of intimacy was profound. It was as if I held him in my hand--no, better, for in my hand he would huddle in terror. It was as if I were his mate, and we were working together in intimate tolerance. I had had no idea, no idea, that I could call this gift of intimacy to me so easily. Since then I have seen many wonders with my binoculars, but none as deeply moving as that first chickadee.
Here's a tiny bird, beautiful slate blue, I've never seen it before. I get a good look, and frantically page through my Peterson's. It seems like a creeper kind of bird. I find it: blue-gray gnatcatcher. He's lovely, elegant and sleek. I find giant pileated woodpeckers silhouetted against the sky. There are catbirds and mockingbirds, familiar from home but exotic when found here in the swamp, alone.
There are butterflies! Red, orange, yellow, blue, white, black. Some of them are enormous. I can't do it all. I want to learn them. Maybe sometimes I should go out just to find and begin to learn butterflies. Here are two, side by side, resting in a thin mud smear, taking in salts. They are swallowtails, I know that much, and one is yellow and black, the other black, and blue and some yellow. How, why, these wonders, these extravagances?
How far shall I go? In some spots the trail gets a little muddy. Good; I can look for tracks, I search carefully. Here's neat slender hands: raccoon. Oh. What's this? Could these possibly be trotters? Like too-narrow deer hooves, cloven. They set my nerves at an even higher pitch.
I've been out about an hour, gone maybe a mile and a half or so, at this deliberate pace. I pass through a small clearing; it has been someone's place, a long time ago, for there are the twisted rusting remains of some corrugated metal.
Suddenly ahead I see--at last--a snake! It seems very pale, a pale light brown. Slowly I back away, excited. Raise the binoculars. Why, it's a snake's skeleton. As I pick up this elegant treasure, curled in its final movements, I wonder how it died, and what kind it was. Its ribs splay out like thorns from its spinal column. There is no skull. I discard it--no, not really. I return it.
Ahead now I see a place where I really would have to wade. Okay, I shall stop there, and return.
What's that. Loud splashing, loud splashing in the water that's hidden by brush, just to my right. Splashing and--yes--grunting. Snorting. Crunching. This is a mammal. It's a mammal. There's a large mammal, maybe more than one. Grunt, snort. I can hear it breathe and chew.
Surely that can only be pig! What do I do? It can't be more than ten feet away, hidden.
Moving a ways back down the trail, I challenge it in a loud firm voice. "HEY." Nothing happens. Absolutely nothing. The rummaging and splashing and snorting and snuffling and crunching and grunting go right on.
How fast can a pig run? How fast can I? I decide to leave. I walk away.
No. No, no, no, no. This isn't right. I want to see this animal. Carefully I sneak back, opposite to where it is. I move in a little closer, raise the binoculars, hoping to see something through the underbrush.
Sleek brown fur, sinuous rounded bodies. Neat ears. Otters. It's two otters, hunting and eating and talking. Joy wells up in me and floods away my fear.
I fill with thanksgiving and have a strange impulse to sing: Praise gods, from whom flow all these blessings. Thank you for letting me see these otters.
The otters finish their local business and move away. Reeling with happiness, I return at a steady trot to the car. I seem to be at the center of some great web of light and activity, all around me, and I a participant.
I drive farther along the white shell road. There are about a dozen more enticing trailheads, but all of them are under water, and I'm about satiated, anyway.
Eventually the dirt turns to a narrow unmarked strip of asphalt, passing through featureless fields. No shoulder, potholed. Like an abandoned road. I'm totally happy and don't care if I'm lost or what. This road is supposed to connect up with my intended route north and west. I drive slowly on, windows down, classical music loud on the radio, looking for bitterns--
Whoops! out of road. And there, at the end of the road, what do I find? Germans, in a Mercedes. We compare our maps. There's the road, shown going through. I check out what's actually ahead: soft, sandy track. I'm not takin' my car in there. They leave; I leave.
White dust roils the air behind me. Back now on the real highway, and then west on I-75, a long empty monotone. On up to Bonita Springs and the EconoLodge, a few hundred feet from the highway.
At the Quik-Pik next door, the truck stop where I buy my juice and roll for breakfast tomorrow, and my beer and chips for tonight, the man includes a tiny paper bag with my order. I suddenly see it's for putting my beer can in while I drink it. How sweet. Is that for discretion? I think it must be. If a lady is going to be drinking from a can of beer in public, this will offer her some discretion. If a man, some mannerliness. I love this. Do they do this up north? Probably not; they have not got these delicate sensitivities. There's a whole stack of the little bags on the counter.
9 March 1993 - Bonita Springs
It is a fine morning. When I get up, I go to the lobby to get coffee. I drink it and write for a while. Then I make my peanut butter sandwich, pack my lunch, wipe the condensation off the car. There was a quiet party in the parking lot last night, a recorder, a guitar, laughter and conversation. At first it was pleasant to hear, but then I tired of it and had to close my windows and turn on the fan for white noise.
Today I am going to Corkscrew Swamp Audubon Sanctuary, quite near here. On our way up this coast, three years ago, it was painful to pass by signs for it on the highway. Now, I can do as I please.
And I do. My very first sight at the Sanctuary is of a painted bunting, that "most gaudily colored of American songbirds." He hops out of a bush to the path just outside the Visitors' Center. I watch him through binoculars and forget to take his picture: violet-blue on his head, a green back, brilliant red belly. The few of us who see him congratulate each other for our good luck.
I barely move, here, barely creep along, caught in the webs of successive simultaneities, mine with the birds. Now I share a moment in this kingfisher's life, who darts amid the swamp hunting. Now I enter briefly the intensity of this wren's brown circuit of this tree, pecking, poking. The unimaginable time envelop of that jewel hummingbird, perched for how long of his instants, and how long of mine, on the tip of a branch, like a flower in silhouette? For these precious seconds, they and I share life. And then diverge, they to theirs and I to mine.
Limpkins feed on apple snails and we people watch in satisfaction from the boardwalk. To help, I open my Peterson's to the page, and leave it on the railing so people can see what they're looking for. An expert helps me to identify a white-eyed vireo I'd seen earlier. Twice people find water snakes, and everybody observes their thick dark bodies. "There it is," she tells her companion. "See? it looks like a bicycle tire?" This is a useful search pattern, so everyone finds him. The snakes delight us by moving, sliding, now and then. "There he goes, now. He sees something."
The boardwalk is crowded with quiet people. It reminds me of the quiet at Treetops in Kenya. People help each other with spotting. "Want to get a hummer?" the woman ahead of me asks, and points out the small speck against the sky. The hummingbird's straight little beak sticks out, and he ruffles his tiny feathers. I pass the enchanting sight on to the next folks. Everybody helps.
An anhinga knifes in pulses through black water. As I'd come on him, I thought it was a snake swimming, head high, looking for prey.
Coming toward me on the boardwalk is an elderly man pushing a folded wheelchair ahead of him. As he and his wife move slowly forward, they herd a Little Blue Heron along the railing, towards me. I stop. What's the heron going to do? The distance is closing. People come up behind me. We all watch and wait on the heron. The man moves forward slowly. The elegant slate blue heron, two feet tall, slowly picks up one pale green foot and then the other, edging slowly away from the wheelchair people and towards the rest of us. When he's about five feet away, of course I take his picture. Pretty soon, he cocks his body, and flies to the nearest low branch. We all laugh, and the wheelchair man moves by.
A skink glitters black on a tree trunk at knee level.
I've been in here on the boardwalk for four hours now. My legs ache with walking so slowly, and I have taken in so many wonders, so much sighting, that I'm beginning to be satiated. Catbirds flick about in the thick brush. Pileated woodpeckers thuk above.
I feel I can't see one more. Then I come to the owl. It's a barred owl, a big brown owl, hunched with his back to us, in a tree maybe thirty feet way. I come and sit behind him through my binoculars. Other people come by, and I show them. The barred owl turns his head, and we see the mysterious disc of his face. We sigh with delight and awe. The owl looks not like a bird, or an animal of earth, but an organism form some other place or time. He extends, flares his wing. We cry out in muted delight. Suddenly the silent air vibrates. WHOO-COOKS-FOR-YOU, WHOO-COOKS-FOR-YOU-AWLL. He calls his great call, and there comes an answer, from quite close. A second owl sails past the treetops, his great curled wings plying the air, and lands in unobstructed view, a few yards away.
I'm staggered. I watch the two barred owls, mighty hunters, great-voiced creatures, and I only a miserable thing that must creep and can neither call nor hunt.
Who are men or women, that one should be mindful of them? Only one kind of creature among all these powerful multitudes.
Back at my motel, I feed the feral cat family that lives under the units opposite, under a grating. I spread a can of tunafish on a piece of cardboard and set it out for them. They don't allow me to come near, but when I keep a distance, they come to eat the fish, and sit about afterwards, cleaning their whiskers. Three adults and a young one. I am deeply content, this evening.
10 March
Well, this was largely a wasted day. I drove through miles and miles of pink and turquoise glitz to get to Sanibel-Captiva islands and the Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge, about which I've heard so much. The whole thing is a disappointment. I do see a fine gator track and haul-out, a pair of roseate spoonbills, a grebe, a few various herons--and a lot of cars on a so-called drive-in "nature trail."
Then I try for a beach, for the famous shelling. Bumper to bumper to the end of Captiva, tantalizing glimpses of blue-green water here and there between houses that line the road. No parking. No parking. No parking. To the end and right back again. My car and I are heating up.
So back I go, end to end with others. Finally I pull into a public beach area, and wait twenty minutes for a parking space. At last, onto the beach.
Well, it is beautiful. Simple lines, simple colors, simple shapes. Nothing but shells, piles, drifts of shells. They all look familiar from the Bahamas, but there are so many! I take off my shoes, get out my plastic collecting bags, and walk slowly (again, and always) down the gleaming beach, picking just the prettiest rosy ones. A gathering of eight white ibis hunts in the sand just ahead of me, and don't seem to care if I'm there or not. A lone egret is so tame I nearly step on him. Couples walk by. Everybody has plastic bags, bringing home treasures. But you can't. This is the treasure. We must go to the treasures of the world, we can't bring them to us.
The car and I hobble back to Bonita Springs. We're disgusted with the crowds, the tacky, the wrecked shore. Oh! here's a pretty place! Let's build a condo on it!
11 March - to Miami
In a few minutes now, I'll pack up the car and drive back to Miami. I plan to visit the Miccosukee Indian Village on the way. Take my time.
This great gift of place my friend Tom has given me!
Later. A long, tiring day of driving. In the morning I have a conversation with the old guy in the next room, who's "been coming here to this motel since they opened it." Yes, I guess it is convenient to the highway, about a thousand feet away. Where's he come from? Cambridge, Mass.
I tell the registration lady as I check out about my disappointing day at the islands. I have been feeling so fine, all these days, that I've been talking to everyone. Old people do that, I notice. I always thought it was from loneliness, which I'm sure is part of it, but also I think it's from a sense of calmness, centeredness. It doesn't matter to you if they answer or not. You've earned the right to speak your view.
I've carefully filled my car with what I hope is exactly enough gas to arrive empty, as planned. I hop on I-75, head south a ways in the thin traffic, then take a narrow little connector to 41. My plans's to stop along 41 at the Village.
These roads are strange. People drive with their lights on to be seen, since there's some kind of effect of air and light that makes it impossible to see or judge cars ahead. The lights help, some.
On impulse, I turn in at Collier-Seminole State Park. The trail on which John and I saw the bear is in this area. I have a good talk with a ranger. I tell her about the bear. They've radio-collared thirteen individuals--or no, identified thirteen, in the park. I'm delighted. She and I talk about neat places I've seen, and she makes some suggestions. There needs to be a guidebook to the Real Florida, as they call it. I'll do the research...
I walk in on a little trail, my last in Florida, for a while. I see a fine view of a red-shouldered hawk, pale Florida morph. And I show a red-bellied woodpecker to a young couple, who are astonished by him. "I've never seen anything like that before," she says in amazement, taking his picture. I feel so happy. I'm learning quickly, from this trip that what is right for me is to walk the tangled bank itself, and look for bitterns, and I want to show them, share them.
Back out on 41. About thirty minutes down it, an abrupt halt. A line of cars and trucks, as far as I can see ahead, is stopped, parked, on the highway.
In a few minutes, word comes down the line: an accident, they're shutting down the road for a couple of hours.
Three people have died, they say.
This beautiful morning was their last. I hope they did not know. I feel sick. They did not die of alligator, nor snake, nor lightning, nor shark. They died of themselves.
I turn around, and drive back to head up to I-75. This huge empty road takes me, eventually, here to Miami.
I can't stop thinking about the dead people. Had they been among those who passed me? Death lay in wait in the innocence of the morning, and we didn't know it.
By the roadside I saw a black snake, coiled, his head reared high. Death is coiled in life, and comes as easily.