During the wet cool season here in Virginia, the mist rises from the morning creek bottoms, and the spring beauties and bluebells add flashes of color to the mystique. Down where the sycamore seems king and the water truly rules, sometimes the eyes can play tricks on you.
I saw a ghost tonight,
wrapped round the branches of a creek bottom sycamore
orange eyes gleaming in the mist
he moves in mystery and myth
his existence denied, since the century turned
yet he is here,
wraith or reality
matters not really
conversationally, the murmurs always
beneath the surface
"a painter landed on a tin roof upholler, thain he was gone"
"a cougar loped cross the road right in the headlights, so quick I couldnÕt be sure"
the murmurs grow, like drops of water
collecting from many hillside seeps,
joining down holler
legends grow much like rivers do
from tiny beginnings
A legend looks me in the eye,
from perhaps 50 feet,
perhaps 100 years, his tail stretching back into the past
It is hypnotic, this sensation
the possibility of being hunted by an adversary;
larger,
stronger,
faster,
more cunning,
and more motivated
perhaps
more hungry
the fear is strangely dulled
he is a myth after all,
myths do not have appetites
and now he is gone,
perhaps he was never here at all
perhaps he is always here;
after all, that's how legends are