If it weren’t for the sign,
I’d probably walk by the tree and not think twice.
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| This tree originally grew in knee-deep water along the banks of an undiked Lake Okeechobee |
Or maybe I’d sit on the bench …
And luxuriate in its shade.
And even possibly take note of the old concrete wall.
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| Today, it is perched over ten feet above the water line of the Caloosahatchee River on the outside of the Lake’s perimeter levee |
Still, I doubt it would naturally occur to me …
That the concrete wall was the old lock to the Lake Okeechobee before they built the modern one a mile or three upstream. Or that the tree once served as the sole navigational marker on the Lake.
And the stories this tree could tell if it could speak.
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| The title on the sign says it all |
Fortunately there’s a sign.
