NIGHTFALL IN THE LOWCOUNTRY

To the south toward the Santee heat lightning flashes across the indigo sky as tree swallows glide and plummet toward the Sampit to seize their final catch of the day.
Winging her way west into the red and purple dusk a solitary osprey clutches a mullet in her talons as other mullet splash in the incoming tide fleeing a dark predator lurking below.
Arching in synchronized swimming a pod of bottle-nosed dolphin travels seaward in the waves of Winyah Bay speaking a silent, foreign language while from the low branch of a live oak draped in Spanish moss a lone screech owl calls.
Circling and darting in the faint light bats feast on the morsels abandoned by the swallows as stars multiply in the moonless canopy above.
In a feeble attempt to capture this sacred moment, I scribble lame lines on the yellow leaves of a legal pad.