Playground for Light

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.