Life
On Weedon Island is different
from man—made places.
In the shade, beneath a tin roof
at a green wood picnic table
we sit and write among the living world:
live oaks, saw palms, cautious raccoons, 
tall, naked pines festooned with hats of pine needles
flitting sparrows, quiet turtles, hurried bugs
soft feathers of a breeze stroke our shoulders.
above, the blue sky is cloudless this morning.

Death
 on Weedon Island is different 
living and dying linked 
as dry yellowed leaves and grasses
turn to fertile mulch 
for Spring blooming magnolia trees.

On Weedon Island are no losses
like the finality
of gunshots
people lost and tossed
from neighborhoods
plowed away
soil and sand pushed 
under shaking condos.

Here 
we are held as if in a hammock
rocked gently by
rhythms of bird call
woot woot, pause, woot woot, pause.
The song, the bird, the daylight
beginnings and endings
come and go
come and go
like the first 
and the last
breath.