A Place Near Water: for my Captiva friends

A Place Near Water

I shared the desert’s dusty breath

all winter and into spring,

Now the air’s grown cirrus-thin,

without even the grit for tears

or smoke enough

to tease a cough from my lungs

I long for that place 

deep under the trees

where leopard light dances

on moist leaf beds,

where pavement-worn sandals

can sail the grass,

and rising fog rains rivers of mist

to catch like snowflakes on my tongue,

where moments before sunset

ruby refections spiral out

from a pebble toss 

and every sound is a whisper:

that  place.

Remember?

There was a river or a lake
or a sea