Andrew Epstein
Recognition at Spanish Moss Farm
Where there’s oxygen
there is a way.
The annual azalea explosion
in slow-motion.
Try to accept that intention
married to diligence
equals a
stale, flat bread of a creation.
“It still gives me a high,
every time,” he says, eyes
half-closed, lips curled in a smile,
after signing more post-kid-show
autographs: “even if
they’re only 3 feet tall.”
By the time we get
out in the country
for the folk concert, a chill has slipped into
the mild spring space that was today, evening pulling
it by the fingers. Mountains of rose
clouds, striped by blood-red chasms,
hover over this nowhere patch
of north Florida woods and farms.
We drive across
three football-field lengths of empty grass lit
by the failing light at Spanish Moss Farm.
To be imperfectly honest, there is no one
to one
correspondence between inspiration
and creation, ever.
Underneath every fallow
stretch is a powder-keg of blossoms just screaming
for a match.
Just watch.