Key Largo to Key West

This poem was inspired by a trip we took last year from Key Largo to Key West ….

Key Largo to Key West

A sultry, agreeable haze lingers above Highway 1

A solitary egret makes a ponderous landing in a nearby red mangrove

A graceless alligator blinks just above the motionless water

Lazily contemplating his next kill

The african queen, harboured in a Bogart movie

Floats regally, a washed out awning

Protecting its mellowing beams,

Somehow hoping for a tranquil retirement

Tavernier emerges, Ocean Pointe concealed,

Between lanky bushes dissolving into gnarled, submerged roots

The sapphire painted buildings overlook

A sea, infinite in its harmony

Casual iguana glare, motionless

As if becalmed by the noonday swelter

Pelicans drift awkwardly between diving petrels

The translucent sky encouraging hermit crabs

To scurry into shady cavities

And the occasional squirrel to find the parasol of a myrtle oak

Cream colonial verandas overlook the Bay of Mexico

A sapphire ocean lightly lapping at languorous palm trees

Nurse sharks meander, barely noticed

In the summer iridescence

The ivory sand of Honda Beach, a crescent outlined by morning iris

Meditates, fire ants dawdle erratically across its sultry shore

A lone, sun wrinkled angler casts a desultory line,

Promptly falling back into an afternoon slumber

A solitary set of footprints dissolves into a deep cobalt reef

An open top mustang drifts over seven mile bridge,

A different ocean on either side

Contemplating an elegant sunset at Key West

A sun, decalescent in its deceitful subtlety

Passing marker 35 towards Big Pine Key

A Key deer saunters, somehow sensing its history

Wooden fishing piers protrude from concrete inlets

Key West appears, its tropical timbered quarters veiled by banyan trees

Conspicuous by their anonymity

A spectre of Hemingway shadows every terrace,

Permeating every timber

The customs house stands like a coral reminder

Of clandestine rum runners

St Pauls church, a white coned wooden steeple

Standing superior, aloft, among heavenly flame trees

Wandering along duval street, Sloppy Joes hints

At a literate past, the Parrot Bar rings with rhythm n’ blues,

Its rust covered roof, bleached green walls, a soulful reminder

Of bygone music, infused in its undusted joists

The day is drawing to dusk, the harbour coaxes us

The amber sun is lazily altering to a deep crimson,

Flaming it’s way to the horizon

Absorbed in a descending journey,

It evaporates over Wisteria Island

The daily crowd cheers, applauding, acknowledging nature

And dusk creeps into night

Written by:  Terry Custance