Meditation in Saint Augustine

The gelatinous object on the sand has a name, 
cannonball jelly, a blob-like jellyfish that is
a still life inviting children to lift it, examine it, 
find its mantle, probe its tentacles, bury it,
seek out other treasure on or in the sand—
ghost shrimp, burrows of ghost crabs,
coquina clams, propagules of the black mangrove. 

Elsewhere, egrets, ibis, great blue 
herons ignore us to fish for food.
Always, overhead, pelicans. Now and then 
tortoises tunnel up, lumbering into sunlight, 
the slatted grey boardwalk near, we two 
peering down as if we have never before 
seen such a preposterous fellow.

Sunning herself outside the cathedral,
a meditative woman with long black hair
lies supine on a bench, her hair cascading 
as she prays, her rosary held aloft, her 
lean arms graceful in afternoon light,
the cathedral doors locked, a statue
honoring Father Pedro Camps almost
shading the young lady lost in reverie.

And when he prayed for his people—overworked,
hungry, sick, but devout—did he ask for respite?
Or, man of faith that he was, did he thank his God
for the people he led from Minorca—who,
like slaves, labored in St. Augustine—and the trials 
he knew they would endure, the wretchedness
  they learned to transmute, the splintered, uplifted 
cross the one beacon that carried them? 
Like the vulning pelican that bleeds herself to feed 
her young, Father Pedro sustained his people, 
blood of the sick and dying caking his robes.

Far away, a peacock struts in the derelict southern plantation,
slave quarters of coquina stone long since abandoned though 
shadows insinuate themselves in what remains, and hints of sighs. 
A lizard suns himself on leftover fence posts and I wander,
the steps of spirits who abide here softly disappearing
everywhere around me. Palm trees, oaks, and Spanish moss
conceal what secrets they own, night coming on.

HELEN MARIE CASEY

Helen Marie Casey’s chapbooks include Fragrance Upon His Lips, Inconsiderate Madness, and Zero Degrees, a collection of poetry of witness. She has also written a biography, My Dear Girl: The Art of Florence Hosmer, and a monograph, Portland’s Compromise: The Colored School 1867-1872.