I’d Woo History if I Could

Warmth engulfs me. Wraps around me like a blanket when I’m already too warm to need a blanket, sticking to my skin. A breeze churns the air leaving me with the feeling of someone breathing on my neck, but all over my body, rather than a refreshing reminder of coolness.
The cobblestone I sit [...]

Wishful Thinking

I sit near an old well in the middle of the downtown plaza of St. Augustine. Although I’ve passed this well countless times in my eleven years of residence in this city, I don’t think I ever noticed it. It was just another decoration in a tourist laden downtown park. But now I pause long [...]

Unsightly / Unsighted

The memorial, a skinny obelisk, stretches prominently above an intersection where cars and horse-drawn carriages idle. Piercing through the trees and skirted in a sidewalk of coquina shells and concrete, its somber reverence drowns in the loudspeakers of St. Augustine’s trolley train tours.

Overlooking the Confederate Monument

Unearthed like a long forgotten relic in a grove of live oaks and pine trees sagging under Spanish moss, it towers over the heads of a couple, middle-aged, taking a picture because it’s there. This relic of the Civil War attempts to tell its own time; a narrow shadow spilling onto the ground signifies noon. [...]

The Horse Well

The first thing I feel as I approach this seemingly ancient horse-well is the mid-afternon the humidity. It may be eight-five degrees temperature-wise, but that eight-five degrees is different when you’re not in Florida. Somewhere a bird enjoying this same heat is making noises, but it is not a chirping. He’s somewhere between a squawk [...]