Narrative

They could sense it—
the talkative gulls
dancing and diving 
just above the surf,
the winds bringing 
new aromas,
wavelets leaping up
trying to dash them
into the sea,
the Florida panther
stretched across 
the Everglades floor
and the mating alligator
gutturally calling for love.
They could feel a rumbling
deep beneath them
that was not their own.
Instead it was the distant rumbling
of Florida’s new railroads,
conduits to what became known 
as the Sunshine State,
as already wealthy men
like Flagler and Plant
correctly predicted that
if they built them
people would come,
and come they did,
and as the song many years later
would have it,
they paved paradise 
to put up a parking lot.
Once again we learned 
that progress is a
distinctly two-sided coin.

Fairyland