Trip to the Wetlands

 A/N: This is an updated version of this work here. With some changes that had been suggested to me on forums. Hope that this can show some improvement 

I hear a chittering, its the high pitched cheep of a red squirrel, the leaves rustle as she scampers in the canopy. She sits at her intervals, and chews away; cracking, crunching, and plopping as it drops into her midden. Building up her pile upon the soft pine floor, its dampness softening the sounds of her dropped shells. It is when I’m focused on her that I hear it, the clunking song of an American bittern. Deep throat-ed clunks, birds singing in time with the running waters and rustling reeds. Bitterns are the best at hide and seek with me playing as the finder. I move through the pines, pushing, crunching on needles, rustling against my jacket. I want to see the small river, the wetlands hidden gem. The bitterns get louder the closer I get, but they remain hidden from view as always. My feet mush into the muddy terrain as it slowly turns from pine carpets to the boggy land.

The bog lands are what I came here for, I want to search in the depths of reeds and grasses. To find my hidden sphagnum mosses, bright and red with acids. When I step on them they consume my feet, swallowing my shoes in muddy water, peat floor barely keeping me afloat. Above these layers of compressed years of leaf litter, sits the shrubs. Plants that learned to survive and even thrive in these harsh environments. Many learning new ways to stay alive, like the northern purple pitcher plants, taking its colour from the environment, feasting on the flies passing through. Inside the sphagnum I can see long tendrils of flowers running across the ground, bog cranberries. I bend down to grab one, small and fragile with smooth skin. Inside this red berry there is a singular seed, and its fruit will be tart yet delicious. All these wonders for me alone hiding above this layer of moss.

 I wander further to the edges of these wetlands as there is what I came here for. An open water marsh, where the peat is but a thin layer. I sink further into it, each step adds water over my feet, it’s dampness seeps into my shoes. I wish for the solidness of home, however this is my comfort place, my wetland of life. I spy a yellow pond lily floating near the edge, wide singular leaves, flowers already spent. Underneath that pad will be the slime in which microscopic and macro-invertebrate will feed upon, the enrichment of marsh life. When I look further into the water I can watch little fry swimming to and fro, this water supporting all this life. At the same time I am wading through the world as it enters the slumbering months, in which the world slows down and rests. Looking into the open water again, I see the loon come back up from his diving. Slowly paddling towards the far side, pushing through the lilies as they get sparser. The ripples lap at my feet, creating small wish-wash noises, an unreal silence.

 Now that I have stopped moving I can notice more of the sounds, the songs of crickets and the summer ending, high pitched and ear splitting. Hearing the wind softly rushing through the blue flag lilies that litter the edges, watching them waving to me. I think about the water lilies, and what anchors them to the floor of the marsh. Part of me wonders if its worth diving under, experiencing that bottom and its ancient secrets. My hands scattering small invertebrates, fishes and grasping at plant life. Reaching into lily tubers, running my hands through the coontails. I am in love and enchanted in this underwater world in my head, craving being free from my human flesh. Envious of the loon who can meander through this hidden world easier.

I have to make my way back soon, the sun sets behind the pines, creating dark silhouettes. Crickets letting out their final calls of the days, blackbirds no long trilling. This silence reminds me of how alive this world is even in the eve of passing. Turning around will mean leaving this world behind, in its delicate state. No longer will my feet be in the peat, the muddied water frozen solid, plants long gone to rest. The dampness seeps into my clothes, giving me goose-pimples, my hair raising. I feel exposed, animal instincts kicking in that craves me to be hidden among the pines again in my natural habitat.

 I give in to those instincts, turning away from this fleeting beauty. The loon has since left, any left lilies closed, night is falling soon. I wander back down the way I came, the sludge clutching at my boots. Sluck, slop my feet make noise in the now silent bog, the cranberries all tucked away, shying from the cool night. Pitcher plants still stand stoically, and the blue flag waves goodbye as you pass. Each being a modest reminder of the dead months coming.

I cannot move any faster, hands grasp at the reeds I’m not ready to leave yet. I do not wish to leave and change, to die and be reborn. I crave for this land to be here and same, neither of us changing but living in stagnation. Alas I know seasons and years will change, and it took many moons to become the earth it is as I know and it will be many more to see drastic changes that I fear. As much as I crave to to stay and take this life with me, I cannot per the rules of keeping nature the way you entered it.