Marsh Music

by 

Autumn Laird

April 11, 2002

Eerie winnowing fluttering swoops the marsh peeps hidden in the daylight sheltered by whispering reeds clicking with seeping water springing to life the gray water turning in eddies shadowed by skeleton willow trees catkins dangling silent bells of blooms tuffs of fluff pulling from the velvet brown cattails where a red winged black bird clicks and whistles a V shadow dances against the horizon the vulture rises higher on the thermals of the calling wind rushing over the reeds and trees sounds are disembodied by the windy snatches the cranes dance and leap calling out whooloos the brown coloring of the sandhills camouflaging their presence while the soft song of the frogs comes to cadence with the wind tadpoles darting among boggy hills submerged in shallow pools the sun reflecting in its low point on the western slope with the ripple and bending of trees glimmering in the last rays shadowed by a front of warm air pushing the cold gusts making them rise in a slow escalation of darkness to a promise of rain and electrical excitement rises from the earth to the ground funneled by the wind over the heated ground sung by the frogs emerging from their slumber woodpeckers tap on hollowed out trees that are giants among the red-ocher dogwood and slim willowy fingers along the creekbed where rotting wood collapses into the dam of protection for the mallards hidden in their nesting grounds where beavers slowly add to the muddy sticks that block the flow of water the soft mews of hidden birds is interrupted by the long trilling of a song sparrow sitting on a barbwire fence where a faded no trespassing sign stands out among the silent overgrowth that threatens to overtake the tires and trash spread by careless motorists the marsh is inhabitant regardless of those things and new life returning my eyes and ears hearing sounds I cannot recall as a child and still the soft wind through the ducks feathers whinny and they fly over in formation circling for a moment then passing on changing directions in flight as a hawk lifts off a tree dotting the edges of where the hilly field rises into trees an farm where grazing elk are like giants among deer the sudden burst of color flushes from the fence line and a pheasant rooster calls up to the sky with a varied crow on the distance the air is hazy with dust in the first warmth of the season a red tail circle and flushes the blackbirds until resident crows take up chase and disappear into the trees and haze cawing in the retreat of their territorial game the long stretches of heavy power lines rising and dipping across its diagonal lines crisscrosses the marshes and a hammering of a woodpecker echoes like repetitive knocks against my ears awake it says and the laughter catches in my ears as it takes leave of its empty post a kestrel carries nesting grasses and lands atop the power pole the mate wheeling off for another load as they dance lightly on the wind from their perch the hooded eyes catching in the sun and paying me a secret glance i put my head back watching the water for a moment and hear a soft blip of water ping with ripples as a fish surfaces and descends again before my eyes can catch it in the murky depths I think of my grandfather for just a moment and our fishing trips learning to appreciate the sights and sounds defiantly struggling against the progress we had made now so stubbornly covered with canary grass resting my eyes on the graying sky the sun shadowed by low runners of clouds a small rainbow barely visible pillars to the heavens the sundog brightens then disappears a reminder of the paths  yet to take listening on I breath in the warmth and take this time for myself to listen to the eerie fluttering of marsh birds and wind rushing through the grass where my thoughts are part of a harmony waving like a blade in a sea of brown yellow and new green and the song accompanying me is the sweet melody of spring peepers and red-wing blackbirds caught in snatches of notes in a sheet of wind.