Welcome to The Marsh Visitor Centre!
You
know the direction. It’s the way
you
aren’t sure of. A view you didn’t
expect
to be seen lies bare before you,
courtesy
of The Marsh Visitor Centre.
Its
revamped wetlands made sight-specific:
the
once deemed empty
now
branded as filled. A raised boardwalk
ramps
up the impression you’re
closer
to water though you’re more
like
a raccoon at a sunken koi pond
where
edges precisely canted at angles
keep
you from making
any
direct contact in the way that
Narcissus
failed to forestall.
Repetition
is rendered
by
reeds at the shoreline
where
much looks equal but nothing
stands
out, where too often
nothing
means just what you can see.
Brown
scum shed by waves
could
be snakeskins moulted by the movement
of
each undulation. Drifting twigs and leaves
mingle
and merge past a beaver lodge
disabled
by its own solidity
from
joining the flow. Decay and debris
floating
a crowd-sourced creation.
Ahead,
signs point you away
from
more scenery: Do not enter. Stay
on paved roads.
But
what makes sense may not make for perspective.
As
if a woodland path can be pulled
from
its forest. As if a trail is only
the
dirt that defines it. Don’t even joke about
the
improved parking lot paved
with
good intentions.
We
justify what we can of ourselves.
Does
the past have any place
all
for its own? Apparently not.
Or
maybe past here. Clearly a place where
you
no more belong than
you’re
welcome to linger uninvited.
There’s
sumac and dogwood taking position
against
random shrubs of mass profusion
whose constancy
fails to unite as one form.
Then there’s
phragmite, hogweed, purple loosestrife.
At home in places
they should not
be. According to signage,
those plants are
invasive, a resiliency to be envied
or outright killed. Proceed with caution,
watch your step,
since advances don’t
preclude
a
setback ahead. See that pool--
where
there used to be cattails?
They’ve
vanished completely. Reflect on that.
There’s
no off-season
when
it comes to change.
This
marsh keeps to corners you’ll never reach,
knows
not even Nature
can
hold on to its looks.
The Compulsions of Snow
The
compulsion of snow
to
keep on rising.
To
descend as
tiny
ripped parachutes.
To
keep underfoot
what
it sent undercover.
To
lie shattered by
the
silence it fell through when
it
pulled all that
quiet
down.
