Derrick Austin

 

Epithalamium

                    Today I'm happy by myselfwandering this creek's paths of sand and crushed shells,                    what used to be submerged.Mosquitos drain me good.Before this river was redirected, it joined two others                     and flowed into the Gulf.What we cannot change, we evade                     and call new. We delay. I couldcall the irrigation works at the headwater bog                                      an aubade                     against flooding.There are picnic spots nearby, gazebos and grillsemerging from palmettos and bindweed.A storm blew down the oak I'd climb to watchfireworks for free.Men still cruise out here.In this lush expanse a manwas lynchedat the beginning of the centuryI was born in.Moving off the trail, I wade into the river.Time feels suspended.My bare feetshuffle pebbles like some grubbing shore bird.Screeching insects, thickets of sweet bay and titi,moldering scent—All this will be gone someday.Gone that paths and signs, gone the milkweed, gonethe armadillos and the fieldand the lynching tree when this river rejoins the othersand washes this away—                                                     no, not gonebut come together, history, nature, love, and lossbrought to scale in a gloriousalgal bloom, a brightness of jade and amber,all this water moving toward where it's always belonged,where I cannot be, where I am.