“Daughters of the Spring” by Lauren Groff

A new piece by faculty member Lauren Groff appears at Oxford American:

A few miles southwest of Gainesville, the arching oaks of central Florida loosen into long fields full of beef steer. They tighten up again into the Goethe State Forest (pronounced, hereabouts, as Go-thee), and finally peter out into US-19, a soulless and endless miracle mile of corporate chains from Applebee’s to Zaxby’s, hitting nearly every letter between. In the town of Homosassa, I saw a smiling gray manatee the size of a VW van on the side of the road, surrounded by a sea of yard-sign valentines that someone had left to fade in the March sun. Homosassa is famous for being one of the best places in Florida to view West Indian manatees, those gentle thousand-pound sea cows that are routinely torn up by jet skis and motorboats.

Continue reading online…