End of season fluff
used to be harvested
by tribal prairie people
for diaper filling
and women's flow.
Bed mats too, softening
sleep on earthen floors.
Soft cotton free and plentiful.
Disposable?
Recyclable?
Renewable?
Back then?
Farmers hate it like
gardeners hate dandelions.
One strong gust spreads
millions of floating seeds waiting
to root. Blackbirds roost and
nest in cattail marshes before
deciding to strip a field of
sunflower seeds.
"But wait, please don't kill the cattails" ~ I pled.
My first firefly show
happened here
long ago.
The glow of it
has yet to dim.
Gallant Loverby
got wet catching
one buzzing light ~
a love trophy for
me, his new bride.
Captured magic
~love's light~
magnified in
a mason jar.
This fall, Loverby stopped to let me take a picture at a thriving cattail colony in the slough. It was still there in spite of planes spraying for complete eradication all those years ago. I had gone crazy when I realized they were systematically trying to rid the prairie of magical places where fireflies played. When I came stumbling into the house sobbing because the planes were spraying overhead with a vengeance - my mother in law held me and cried with me. She explained that the blackbirds came in hoards like locusts and cleaned out the sunflower fields. The cattail sloughs were their breeding ground. They would have no harvest to harvest if something wasn't done. I hated not being able to offer an alternative.
I was an idealistic young woman raging against the destruction of the place where cotton batting grew free, and light played and lived.
I still don't notice blackbirds.
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