Wetlands

WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

Ours was a flat farm, naturally boggy

on the east end until we bulldozed

some drainage ditches.

Made the old owner mad as hell:

it was that swamp that held hay during the drought,

it was where the horses and cattle survived.

We laid it out in lines of corn, the soil

a blackish plain of old leaves, drowned branches,

like a proto-coal. Corn liked it.

Deer remenmbered the old pools and stayed for corn.

Dad planted some rutabagas near the fence

for the winter deer and the plow found a few

the next year. They were sweet, in a way,

crunchy as ice and the size of a stubborn skull.

Twenty, twenty-five years later Dad sold off

and went to Texas to stay warm for cancer.

State bought the place. Brought it back to wetlands

with another set of bulldozers.

Developers pay a ransom for draining another

marsh someplace else. That and ducks, too.