- Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge
Think of ocean spill-off creepingover the outer banks into these brackish
channels which course alongside gravelroads, with bramble-thick new growth
forest on one side, Monsanto corntended in pristine rows on the other—
a black bear rises on his hind legs on a hilland looks at Regina and I as we get out
of the car. He’s young and diureticallypassing indigestible kernels, and she pokes
his poorly formed scat pile with a stickjust as the bear turns tail for the woods.
A storm purpling the distance dipsa waterspout into the sea for a drink,
and I say that we’ll never see a red wolfhere, rust-colored as they are against
these impossible woods. Bordering the edgeof this refuge sits a Navy bombing range
wherein ordinance gets routinely detonated;but today, all is quiet save our boots
scuffling gravel. No doubt the sea levelis rising everywhere these days and even
the modest models show this refugegoing under—as we walk, I imagine the corn [End Page 86]
waving like kelp below the currents,fish pecking the yellow leftover bits,
trees holding their skirts above the kneesand waiting for the water to recede.
And when it doesn’t? What fossilsthe land will have secured for future
scuba divers: black gum roots loosedfrom soil; the slow bones of mammals
with nowhere else to go; and the bombs,o the bombs—the Navy won’t make it to all
of you before the deluge. You too will justhave to wait for the waters to come. [End Page 87]
Travis Mossotti was awarded the 2011 May Swenson Poetry Award by Garrison Keillor for his first poetry collection, About the Dead (Utah State University Press). The Sustainable Arts Foundation awarded him a grant in 2012 to support a forthcoming collection of poems, Field Study. He lives in St. Louis.