Yonder

"Damp Edges"

“To love a swamp, however, is to love what is muted and marginal, what exists in the shadows, what shoulders its way out of mud and scurries along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised.”

Barbara Hurd 

It is “along the damp edges of what is most commonly praised” where the best stories lay in wait. 

Lift up the rug and look to see what was swept within. 

Be the first footsteps, not the worn path. 

We are a water planet, we shoot photos of the oceans, the rivers, the lakes, drops of rain and puddles with reflections. 

And ignore the fight of the water that seeps through the soil in search of the sun. 

Earth itself is “Wetlands.” 

As are you. 

Life finds a way and no more so than in the dark, muddy, overgrown places where we are afraid to look. 

Life finds a way to bloom and prosper without us, possibly in spite of us. 

Life on Earth wiggled, on its own, out of the mud, through the cloudy water, under branches, around ferns and other green plant things and crawled up a bank and took a breath. 

We are the great, great x’s a million Grandchildren of the Wetlands. 

To fill them in, to drain the swamp is to throw out our cradle. 

db