Awakened by the kiss of dawn
the softness of her morning light
gently nudges the night away

The dew drops twinkle on the lawn
a bird sings sweetly his delight,
his trilling, courteous and gay

The garden flowers seem to spring
amidst the green they gently sway
floral fragrance floats on the breeze

The bayou softly murmuring
wavering shadows still at play,
lost in the depths of cypress trees

A squirrel scampers to the ground
and across the yard he rushes
buries acorns without a sound

In the distance a baying hound
eager to hunt in the bushes
until fox or raccoon is found

A horse gallops over a hill
enjoying freedom and the sun,
he stops, grazing in grassy fields

I follow nature and be still
watching as the day has begun
and early morning beauty yields

ALesiach © 07/29/2019

Wandering through the bayou,
wrapped in its eerie embrace.
Mysterious and strange,
a magical place.
Never seeming to change,
even as seasons come and go,
swampy waters ebb to and fro.

Like long-lost daughters,
gnarled courtly cypress trees,
rise from black murky waters.
Draped lovingly in Spanish moss,
swaying softly in the breeze.
Butterflies seem to float across,
as gentle winds ruffle their leaves.

Bouquets of wild hibiscus fill the air,
mingled with sweet azaleas blooming there.
Bullfrogs croak and crickets chirp,
the bayou is awash with soothing music.
As dragonflies flit the cattails, elusive,
water moccasins slithering at your feet
or lurk above you in the trees.

Just as, the sun begins to sink low,
comes the faint sound of a fiddle and bow.
The gator comes out of hiding,
rising from the dark waters below.
Looking for his meal and smiling,
with snapping jaws, a deer is caught,
then taken below where he will rot.

The moon rises high into the night,
as fireflies glow in the twilight.
A voodoo queen slips into sight,
with gnarled hands, she rolls the bones.
Whispering cryptic words, she softly moans.
Tenderly she caresses her snake,
wrapped around and about her neck.

A ****-hound whoops it up.
The gnarled trees cast spooky shadows.
Is that the ghostly apparition of Jean Lafitte?
Who managed to escape prison and gallows.
Did you bury your treasure in the water or weeds?
As the wind moans softly, time to turn home,
where you can fill your belly with spicy gumbo.

ALesiach © 10/12/2014

Honeysuckle scenting the warm summer night
Getting drunk on sweet old apple wine
Crickets chirping their melancholy tune
Rocking on the porch beneath the wandering moon

Soothing sounds of the bayou flowing
Warm breeze from the south winds blowing
Whispering through the leaves calming
Winking fireflies light up the night glowing

The tinkling of wind chimes off in the distance
Smell the moss from cypress trees, tall and twisted
Click-ety clack, click-ety clack
Faint sounds of a train coming down the track

Haunting strains of a Cajun lullaby fill the air
Splash in the bayou birds scatter everywhere
Slowly drifting in and out of sleep
While the long blue bayou shadows creep

ALesiach © 07/01/2017

They found a dead body in Bayou D’Inde
Said he washed up on Thursday afternoon
That February water was real real cold
When old man drowned
I ‘member hearin’ bout that dead body at school
Same as when they found a lady’s head in Cameron Parish
Reminds me when I found an old ice chest by the pond
Full of dead *****
Nobody notices **** anymore
The world ain’t watchin’
It’s too busy texting and driving on the bridge
To care if anyone jumps

This land still sings your silent song
I chased it West under suspension bridges
In the empty whiskey bottles along Mississippi railroad tracks
In the sound of sugar sweet air in blue humid mornings
and the cool breath of absinthe sipped by the riverside
flanked by banana leaves.
Heard it in the breeze of swamp-side Cyprus trees, over swaying docks to rod iron French Quarter balconies, above the Bourbon street children drumming hymns of the Bayou's soul.

There is a girl called Southern Ugly,
She often faces the mirror- Believing
that the reflection must be oneself.

But a woman’s essence
Lives in the light, not in our eyes.
Mother Mary, dressed in blue-

Your daughter sees her face, knowing
That she is not first to be saved for Heaven.
We come second to God

(Though Man did not refuse the apple).
Mother said, “You are a southern belle,
Just baptized in the bayou.

****** in the water,
The depths of the swamp do not foster
Power nor Fortune

But your birth, the prayer of the Moon.
And like a cypress knee
That has not yet broken the surface,

You’re hidden in wisdom unknown."

Nature, too, is self-consuming.
Even the grandest oak
of all southern Louisiana
will be uprooted in a hurricane.
The moss that grazes the water
with gentle finger tips
from those weary branches
will be swallowed by the water.
An old man's life spent in Houma
is reflected in the river currents;
his house built on stilts
across from the cemetery
where is wife is buried
next to her eldest son.
It meets the Mississippi
not surrendering,
returning

Tiny ankles hang down from a wooden bridge over the bayou-
and my friend and I stare at the black water
and point at all the furniture legs jetting out of the blackness
as if they were Cyprus knees—
and he says to me  “Someone said there’s at least a hundred bodies in there”
and without hesitation or a moment of silence
for the uncertain yet forgotten Dead
I say, “Bodies float, so we would see them if that were true”
and he replied,  after a brief moment of thought,
“Maybe they’re tied to all the couches or stuffed in the refrigerators”  
and I couldn’t believe how many house hold appliances
have been repurposed to host all these passed souls
in the bowels of the swamp
and with a swing of my leg, too swift—
my left shoe dropped  and hovered on the water
where lily pads should have been