Cattail marsh

Immobile in the marsh,
cattails create no ripples on a lake
where gulls are riding waves.

A marsh wren, the color of a cattail,
its breast a soft gray-whitish clump,
flits in,
clasps a cattail, trembling, singing.

In slow motion
I watch twelve acres
of a cattail marsh
begin to sway,

exposing soft gray-whitish clumps
bursting the velvet skin.

A singing cattail shakes the lake.

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