The ghostly mist drifts slightly above the frosted ground,
on sometime concealing, then quickly revealing the stillness
of the dark, cold waters of the deep lake prevailing just below.
A great horned owl spreads its majestic wings as it silently soars
from it nightly perch high in a Spanish moss covered cypress tree.
Gliding swiftly with it deadly talons in position, homing in for the
kill of its unsuspecting prey feeding in the tall autumn grass.
As he slowly paddles through the large drifting green Lilly pads,
the lonely loon calls out over and over again to a potential
mate that has abandoned his amorous call for another.
A loud bellow shatters the silence of the swamp's eerie night,
as a giant gator announces his foreboding presence, a fat
black cotton mouth takes the warning and slithers onto the
sandy bank of the lake for protection.
The small floating white clouds drift slowly by allowing
the golden moon beams to reflect off the magical mist
far below. A slight cool breeze silently moves the Spanish moss,
not unlike dark curtains in a haunted house on Halloween night.
A young woman's blood curdling scream echoes from an unknown location
deep with in the lake! Could it be…it must be! The cry from no other than the
ghost of long drowned Miss Melody Van Burn of New Orleans in the year of our
Lord eighteen sixty five.
The young, beautiful maiden, who was so forlorn due to her lover's unexpected
death by the sword at the battle of Vicksburg. She could no longer stand the pain
of a broken heart on that dark October night. She simple walked into the deep, dark,
cold waters of PantherLake, where her ghost remains until this very day.
If you ever visit Louisiana and drive through the Spanish moss laden cypress tree
bayous and happen upon Panther Lake…listen closely, then you may feel the agony of two
lost souls and the cries of a heart broken forever in the middle of that darken October
night! Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!