Carolina Hospital

Waning Landscape

The 400-year-old Fairchild Oak, at the southern end of the trail to the Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic Park, ushers us in. Its 12 ft trunk rises 78 ft tall, and its long heavy boughs, draped in Spanish moss and resurrection fern, reach over 200 ft across. Circling this spectacular tree, I am struck by sorrow and loss. Perhaps it is the massive broken limbs on the ground. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the tree, but that Norman Harwood most likely committed suicide under it in the 1800s, decades after the Second Seminole War battered this land. Or perhaps it’s that the color of its worn-down branches and its open boughs call up Carlos’ great-great grandmother’s crucifix hanging in our hallway, a resurrected relic. Or maybe it’s our daughter’s phone call to say they set up oxygen tubes for mother after her most recent stroke. We speak about accepting death, then follow the old Seminole route towards the creeks’ calming waters.

sweetgum leaves—
falling from furrowed trunks
stars to steer our trek

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About the Author

Carolina Hospital’s books include the poetry collections Key West Nights and Other Aftershocks (Anhinga Press), and The Child of Exile: A Poetry Memoir (Arte Público Press), as well as the novel A Little Love, under the pen name C. C. Medina (Warner Books). Her work has appeared in national publications such as the Norton Anthology of Latino Literature; Raising Lilly Ledbetter: Women Occupy the Workplace; and Florida Literature.