After about an hour hiking the swamp,
I knew. A week’s rains flooded out the trail.
Tall sameness of pines stood round me. Stagnant water,
coffee dark, spread before me. My new boots
stamped sucking cleats to nowhere on red mud.
I knew! But first, denial. Was I really lost?
My damp, illegible map replied: You’re lost.
Sour, rotting silt smells bubbled from the swamp.
I waded in, my walking rod probing soft mud.
Scanning the opposite shore, I see the trail,
I thought, I’ll wade it. Slowly, though, my boots
began sinking. Soon I was shin-deep in water.
A dirty rag bobbing quietly on the water
squeaked and vanished. A muskrat? Startled, I lost
balance, arms flailing helplessly, my boots
still stuck, then flopped with a loud splash. White swamp
egrets scattered. I clambered up, looked: the trail
waited, no closer. How could I slosh dense mud
to get there? Cypress domes bulged out of mud.
I grabbed those, linking dots through murky water,
totally soaked by now, strewing a trail
of gear—hat, vest—any weight to spare. I lost
my sense of place, sweat blinding my eyes. A swamp
root yanked me underwater by a boot’s
strap—I thrashed free, frantically kicking both boots,
till I surfaced, gasping like a fish in mud.
The bottom was deeper now. I swam the swamp
dogpaddling. A snake scared by my churning water
skimmed away. Panicked, I swung at it and lost
my walking rod, kept paddling, struggling, the trail
yards off. Legs and arms burning, I touched the trail
when pebbly bottom suddenly struck my boots.
Dripping, I rose like a Swamp Thing—not lost,
not needing to write my epitaph in mud.
I threw my head back, drained the dregs of my water
bottle then, laughing, tossed it at the swamp.
Resuming the trail, I swore by the crusted mud
of my boots, by that dank baptismal water,
I’d never been lost a moment in the swamp.
