A kayak is the best way to get up close to the low-lying cedar and palm forest that is defined by our river, the Homosassa. This wood is unlike any other I’ve seen and brings to my mind an ancient and untended graveyard. It feels like sacred ground to me.
I’m drawn to these cedar carcasses, each with its own character, and each looking as if it had been struck down prematurely and instantly preserved, like a doomed citizen of Pompeii. A.E. Hausman’s poem, To an Athlete Dying Young, springs to mind:
And round that early-laurelled head Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, And find unwithered on its curls The garland briefer than a girl’s.
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