From the Marshes

From the Marshes
Christopher Bogart

My memories were born on salted breezes,
Blown across the marshes off Jamaica Bay.
From these American moors,
Whose swamps were populated, thick
With reeds and rushes,
I became conscious of a life
Distinctly my own.

They whispered wisdom to me, these reeds.
Their silken heads bowed low,
And their green bodies bent
To impart secrets that naked nature
Held in trust within their pliant forms.

As generations died
From age and future fire,
Decay made fertilizer
To grow my stalking tutors
To search,
To speak
In an endless conversation
With the sky,
With the stars,
And with me.

These bowing bars of seeming brittle vegetation
Were remarkably pliant,
Reliant only on each others’
Counsel.

It seemed to me as if they knew
Everything there was to know,
For me to grow,
For I was young
And knew nothing.

So I spent my days among them,
Sitting on the soft soil,
Watching and listening, as
Their silken heads nodded from side to side,
They confided what they knew.

And I learned.