Atchafalaya -
Such mystery seemed to reside in this cluster of letters:
The music of it's sounds, the mystery of it's meaning and origin,
the vastness of the swamp underneath the bridge.
In my youth, the bridge seemed like a sidewalk to wondrous new vista -
A frontier with a new wilderness -
At once strange and familiar, unknown but innate -
At first, it's lull stultified the buoyant mood that began the journey -
Where the piney woods turned into the swampy alluvium of Louisiana,
A state with instant personality, apparent in the ravaged roads
That sang against the car tires a desperate song of it's savage frailties
That could impassion or disappoint, or a combination of both,
Where the Highway Patrol were unseen despots
Lurking in the murky weeds and trees
But (luckily) only as scenery in my stories.
Where the lure of New Orleans began to emerge,
My imagination running wild with drunken tales of spicy food
And sensuous women, looking for unspoken desires
In de Beinville's Vieux Carré, where Old God's run wild -
This place where magic was in the freedom found there -
Tip-toeing, drunk, across the sharpened swords -
Through the chicken-bloodied doors -
Ah, but the swamp was a source of strange dreams and visions
Throughout my life,
And it will always make my heart race
When I approach the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge.