swamp poem (i)

(November 2021. Chris and I went to Barataria Preserve to see swamp stuff. I like this poem; it demonstrates a sort of poetic consciousness I am trying to develop, the universal self experiencing itself from many directions, the merger of myself into my environment in the act of poetry, Whitman combined with more modern minds. I like how it sounds out loud too when I read it.)

swamp poem i

we came to see gators of course but
saw ourselves in a new wetness.
this is an environment, different
than we’ve known. in a new place
you learn fastest at first, a child
adapting to challenges, joys.
everything touches me; i give body.
on the other side of the imprint
i feel myself, greener and browner
and palmetto hands and still wetness and
little green eyelets observing and
absorbing the surface and I
and the tiny bubbles and the novel birdcall
and the thick moss floating loose and high
held by the trees like the lightest kitestring,
myself in the wind and the wind.