Hadn’t it been for the two
peregrine falcons, I could’ve quibbled
today’s versification along in typical cryptic–
disguising the joy as grief & vice-versa–

but first, submit to my credit, I did tuck
a bow paddle responsively to the stern
& with few complaints, such as why, human,
overcoached yet ostensibly possessed
of a free will, can’t I shrug myself off

of this canoe

to skim like that superficial pelican?

*

Roseate spoonbill zigzags
the covert shallows & claps like a kitchen.

Mangrove propagule bobs by, one end
already at work waterlogging
to sink & tilt to tip
upright– seedling creature– however
likely or not next to graze bottom, exciting roots

to erect itself into vaster perspectives–

when offside waters
erupt, spattering: fierce fish
seizing lunch leavings overboard & quickening
in turn from farther-off the bigger
predator fishes & hungrier,

while here a horseshoe crab has outgrown
& molted seamlessly
one entire round brown
exoskeleton. Who needs
it now?

*

At Snake Bight, high tide
sighs & relapses. Lengthy dense
hubbubs of willets & laughing gulls
stroll admitting multitudes yet of their fellows

to drop, arrive, & muster carriage to strut & intermingle–
plucking along the sandy
marly strip. What
in free will obliges me now to keep
a distance? –when out of a farther distance the two

peregrines I noticed earlier then lost
sight of dived

*

& Instantly gulls & willets in synchronized
hundreds rose among hundreds–
baffling ovation of wing noise–

& massed & billowed to cant aside, diverged
to switch & rejoin nearby, to commingle;

dropped again to mount again to constrict & subside,
& banked to swerve, to level out
again & again rise;

at peril flinging themselves like a single
paisley remnant of some

scrappy glad rag
caught up & flipping about, worrying on a wind.