Northern Florida

                    by the Army

               —Indian middens

               attest 100

          years’ occupation

     The Seminole

     more warlike than

          the innocent

               Tequestas

Quiet in a canoe

     Train whistle West

     & airplane above

          cottony clouds

               in blue afternoon

Seminole and Mikasuki

     accepted

     runaway slaves

               got in trouble with

               the whites—

Abraham the Runaway showed Chief Osceola

          guerrilla gunpowder—

                    Defied the U.S. Army—

Govt. fought 2 wars

               against them—

     first 1820 Andrew Jackson

               fought in Florida

     pushed Indians south

Second Seminole War

     transported 2,000

          Indians to Oklahoma

               around 1840, the Trail of Tears

—200 managed to

escape into swamp

where white man had

     yet no use for

          the land

Indians

     from before Columbus

                    & runaway slaves

               Strange & perpetual

                    alliance

Otherwise we’re all exotics

     like the Brazilian pepper

          and Australian pine

A brown heron

          flaps along the

               green surface

          to stand sentinel

               beak pointed out

     on a green lawn

               past the big rubber

                         tree—

          tall stalky legs

               rising halfway

heavy slow

               on long wings

               the height of the big

               ficus’ leafy

                         umbrella whose

                    thready prop roots hang

               over the concrete

               bank down to the brackish

                              water surface

Kids’ & crows’ voices

     (crows here for the

          season)

Water filled the

     coral, ojus,

               limestone

     a product trucked

          out since

               the railroad came down,

               turn of the century

Trains a mile long

               from rockpits now

               at the edge of

                    the Everglades

Mikasuki Indians now hold

               cultural events

               Steve & Billy Tiger

                    painter & musician

Seminoles more commercially

     oriented, invented Bingo on

          the reservation,

     On land they control

     untax’d cigarettes

A local issue

                    ecological!

We depend on Everglades

     for water to

                    sustain our days—

     Most of the body is

     made up of water—

     3–4 days without water

     we die—

Everglades filters the

     water Dade Broward

          & Palm Beach County drink—

          (Tricounty fresh water—)

But Brazilian pepper seeds

     explode

     and cause mumbo-jumbo

     growth at

               waterside.

     Exotic Malalluca trees—?

          The developers like it

               (it’s cheap)

     but they drink up water & their

     flowers cause allergies

     to Rochelle—

     Red mangrove

                    stains the water

     properly its own color

Are hyperindustrial White folks

     exotics to the planet now?

Here comes a duck

that flies, sings & runs

     but doesn’t do any

          of them well