St. Simons: Marshes at Sunset

Going east between the guardrails on the left,

I crossed the tidal creek bridge (the sun

behind has struck new colors, bright greens

and dark alike, across my eyes, my camera

left at home (until I'm back tomorrow)).

The water hurried, and what looked

to be a plank turned clockwise as it swam

by floating toward the passing under. I saw

the red up‑side, thought dolphin, shark,

and tuna‑salmon in some excited order of ignorance,

saw the vertical double-scythe tail

rolled flat upon the rilling surface

and hurried to the other side‑‑no sight.

I waited, waited not to move yet

since the tide was flowing, saw a five‑inch crab,

like a crazy barber both‑handed at closing time

snapping the minnows I could see fleeing, silvering

themselves away‑‑no red, no knifey tail.

Getting off the road, I walked a twelve‑inch

sewer‑pipe that hung by bolts and rods along

the south side of the bridge, guardrailed

just out of sight of cars that hummed

carefully across. The pipe was rusty, marked

on top with others' walking. I held

the T‑beams when I could, the thin-

lipped corrugated guardrail otherwise.

Leaning away from the bridge, holding on, I feared

the ridiculous, that drivers would think me

some pitifully incompetent suicide

planning to shatter his bones in the marshy ground

ten feet below‑‑or drown in three feet

of creek‑brine.

The silty water seemed not

to go away so fast to the south. It seemed thick

but not so forceful, pushy as what I'd seen

just thirty feet upstream, where the feel was pulpy,

palpable to the eyes, not quite a mud-slide,

a slosh of smothering liquid, but more than

water.

The thing‑fish was hung just north

of the bridge, just where I'd left it my sight

to rush to the other side. I wondered

if the crab had found it yet, and then

if the tide were going out or in

and which was which (it seemed in)‑‑

so I watched two marks in the grey bank

opposite, on line with the fish's dead sight,

bug‑holes, crab‑hollows, some common wet burrow

that within two minutes lost their distance

and disappeared in soupy rush.

The carcass

swung a bit each way, red with sunburn

or native hue, I didn't know. And then I left--

that's all‑‑I was cleaner, calmer,

even happy‑‑planning to return

at just this light tomorrow to take pictures,

run the mechanical increments through

a roll of film, and check my little skills.

The side of the fish was almost big enough

to stand on, to ride, unless the crabs

had scoured the underside, scuttled such a board.

It was almost wide as the sewer-pipe,

suspended, too, with bolts and threads,

rods and holes, currents fastened at one end

to the moon, reaching for the sandy base

of grasses, more to silt the sea, raise fish,

more to carry away and back, more to support,

suspend, and, only in the very last breath of sink, to bury.

--by Robert W. Hill

Billy Goat 4 (2002)