Saint Tammany Nocturne

Saint Tammany, I am no contemplative, but I recognizea blessing taking shape. Lately, it has rained so much

that bamboo bends, genuflecting in steam that risesfrom the earth, and termites sail the air like sawdust, or snow.

Peacemaker, the Dutch called you, and also king,but you were Chief Tamanend of Delaware Nation

before the butchery of your name and the sainthoodthat followed—patron of the cutthroat Church of America.

Non-Catholic, non-Christian, but something Assisi-likein your silence and tribal dress. Stranger to all things bad,

how could you know about your namesake parish here,in Louisiana? As happens with lesser saints, you were forgotten,

shoved aside, banished to the badlands in the west, exiledsouth to marshes with muggy, mosquito sunsets. None

of your totem animals followed. Not one of these water birdsis your familiar. Memorialized in Delaware bronze, you stand on a turtle

with an eagle on your shoulder. Highways crisscross behind,rush hour choking you with smog, and at night, the burn

of side-swiping snow, the lash of red taillights, a constantcome-and-go lasso. Among your kind a turtle is regal

and signifies the earth, but here, turtles on the highwayare flipped over, cracked and festering, their undersides

fish belly white. Most, but not all. Yesterday, I spotted oneinching for the centerline from the gravel shoulder.

I held up traffic, intervened, detoured to Bogue Falaya park,white linen be damned, though I felt something like a bride

walking the pathway laced with catalpa blossoms and moss,or a princess with her frog. Evening came on, rising from muddy ditches,

aiming for the sky, but how fitting that the cool air hoveredno higher than this turtle's shell hauling daylight to the edge of the earth.