Swamps

Full of excitement, you walk the crooked path in the forest to see swamps.

To your surprise, you come across a green snake.

It slides away as though you were not even here.

What astonishes you more is the delusion.

Sunlight drifts on the water, shining brightly.

“It is an ocean!” you think.

You don’t feel damp or smell any strange, undistinguished gas at all.

Dead lily pads leave traces for you everywhere.

Fish submerges in deep water.

The sun carries declined, broken branches of withered trees in this huge, endless ocean.

The sun had grown old here.

Sunlight lay across the street like an old yellow dog, barring the way. The sun had grown old here.  ----Eileen Chang

When I arrived here few days ago, the sentences came into my mind. Compared to the climate in my country, it is hotter and drier in the summertime. The sun spreads everywhere. You have nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. It was my first impression.

Although I came to west side of America twice, it is my first time to the south. "Southernism" is a new territory I want to explore. It is just more than a new vocabulary I learned on my first day.