The Calcasieu River

Do not ski upon the Calcasieu.
Beware those slow waters.
Guard your sons and daughters.
Do not gaze into its changing hue.

There, shotguns shed more than just pintail blood.
Along the bayou's margin reptiles hunt
and death as life bursts forth like a spring flood
blending the rut with pig-like grunts.

There, the quaint houseboat hides a soul that is primal.
It hungers, hungers for flavors we cannot taste.
It thirsts, the thirst surpassing things animal.
Gestating, it's waiting - desperate - beyond grace.

But come, since we cannot measure that pace
nor hide from a tomorrow that is final,
let's go to the gun case and out for a hunt
and then plod with unshod feet through the mud
and follow some rivulet to the swamp's center
where the brack milk of paradise broods.