Cattail marsh

July 26, 2002

Immobile in the marsh,
cattails create no ripples on a lake
where gulls are riding waves.
A marsh wren, the color of a cattail,
its breast a soft gray-whitish clump,
flits in,
clasps a cattail, trembling, singing.
In slow motion
I watch twelve acres
of a cattail marsh
begin to sway,
exposing soft gray-whitish clumps
bursting the velvet skin.
A singing cattail shakes the lake.