When we were boys
we would play capture the flag there,
Or go climbing up the vines
that made a net up and over the trees.
The cow spiders lived there and
every so often you would
confront a web before your face,
with a large spider in the center,
Suddenly you were pumping adrenaline
and your heart was racing.
When we were boys
Sawgrass Lake was forbidden territory
(all the really fun places were,)
but most afternoon we were there.
Although I had my solitary times-
I’d walk to the lake on paths
covered with fallen rust colored pine needles.
Occasionally I’d be startled and terrified
by one of the large black hissers
essing its way across my path.
It was a personal archeological excavation.
The path ended in a protected clearing
where there was a discarded mattress,
several empty beer bottles -
and used condoms.
Relics of primal behavior,
My imagination would be piqued-
And sometimes I would make a detour on the way home
to a place I knew under the vine covered trees.
I can still see the mottled light
that filtered through the vines and leaves,
making a natural cathedral of the spot,
a place sacred and holy.
where I would kneel
and leave something of myself,
A sacrifice to the Mystery
that had inflamed my soul.
Years later when I returned home on a visit,
I discovered the county
had preserved Sawgrass Lake,
turned it into an environmental park.
I like to think my earlier pilgrimages there,
and my personal consecration of the earth
had something to do with this.
I still go there,
now that I have returned home,
and remember those times.
Sometimes I can hear our shouts
and see us scampering
through the jungle,
savages on the hunt.
Now there is a wooden boardwalk
that takes you to a lookout tower
so you can view the lake.
No mattresses,
empty beer bottles,
or used condums
That I can see.
It was really a tract of undeveloped land
Between two residential neighborhoods,
Meadowlawn and Fairview Estates,
Names more apt
before the construction
of hundreds of uniform
pastel colored,
Sparklecrete homes
with television antennaes
Like crucifixes,
attached to the side.
I thought,
when the interstate was built
it was doomed,
But only further tamed,
Civilization’s progress
concession to all
it had destroyed.
A last of prehistoric Florida,
A concentration camp
For the native wildlife
And for me
still sacred and
Like most holy sites-
Miraculous and horrifying.
