Poetic License: ‘Golf Course Alligator’
“Alligators are present —
Enjoy them from a distance”
— Sign on Dunes Golf Course
I’ve watched him often from my caged poolside,
Navigating noiselessly on the gray
Waste water, and with stealthy slide,
Submerge softly into the slime of hazard,
Eyes like periscopes of peril, watching, waiting,
Or, in sprawled immensity, sunning
His rough dark leather on the smooth Bermuda,
Watching the golfer, with golf cart waiting,
Move carefully toward his downhill lie.
But one May morning while watching him glide
He made an ominous turn toward my poolside,
Paused on the edge of hazard, then suddenly
Emerged in full blown immensity —
A monarch of menace come to claim the sun!
One Million BC sprawled on my manicured lawn!
Until, with camera cocked and safe inside
My cage, I moved to shoot- then seeing me,
He rolled and tumbled into the hazard again,
Submerging, periscope eyes watching, waiting …
What we, Earth Movers, with our planned upheavals
Create to play with false creatures like eagles,
Birdies and bogies, doglegs without knees or paws,
Bunkers trapping their tiny round prey,
Sprinklers detumescing in twilight,
And mowers rumbling in the morning light —
He is too mired in memory primeval
For us to ever manicure his menace
Or groom the jeopardy within those jaws!