Swamp Seduction

Happy New Year everyone!  Last night, I returned from a three day/two night solo paddle in the Okefenokee Swamp.  It was an incredible time.  In the watery prairies on the northeast section of the swamp (I began my trip at Kingfisher Landing) there were incredible numbers of pitcher plants from last summer, slowly dying but still glorious.  Having a long time to ponder the plants, I penned this short refection.  The pitcher plant is carnivorous, eating insects (of which there are plenty in the swamp) that explore their dark depths.   Freud would have a field day with this...  

Swamp seduction

Huddled together like whores on a sidewalk,

red polka dotted capes atop graceful lines

shield slender bodies from the sun and rain,

while luring the unsuspected to peek

into the face of the cobra.

Not sensing the danger,

her fragrance and the desire of sweeter nectar,

draws us happily down the dark canal

where few return.

Postscript (January 2, 2014).  In the last paragraph of Megan Kate Nelson's book, Trembling Earth: A Cultural History of the Okefenokee Swamp, Nelson writes:  "The Okefenokee Swamp, like its image, cannot be fully captured.  it is a landscape of desire, conflict and failure."  Perhaps the pitcher plant, in a micro-way, is an appropriate metaphor for the swamp....