Epithalamion for Alligators

 

This more temperate weather
will take some getting used to.
Carry with you, inside, that
other home. We all try to sing
in our mud.

Here is my blessing:
May your rushes, as time
brings them, be high, succulent,
and private. May your mud
be sunwarm, fragrant, comfortable
to slide on; your jaws capacious,
ready to take what comes;
all your domestic instruments
concordant.

Bake and bask then under our sun.
May your eggs be unfailingly fertile,
and your tails abundantly exercised.
Make music for us, and for your own
sweet, scaly, sharp-toothed souls,
forever.