Recovery of our Wetlands

In the early 1980s we stopped pasturing livestock in our fields along Paradox Creek. In the last 30 years there has been a dramatic recovery of the accompanying wetlands.

Wetland Recovery

When the Cows were all sold off:

The beaver came
Flooded the lowlands
First time in hundreds of years
New open spaces

The ducks Came
Wood Ducks
Mallards
Mergansers
Even Coots
clucking, quacking, and kuk, kuk, kuk

The Herons came
Green and blue

Yellow lily pads grew
Pondweed and
Bladderwort too

The deer wade out at night
Wet muzzles dangling plant leaves and stems
Eyes incandescent
Tossing back headlights

Now we can canoe
Up and down the stream for miles
On
Open water perfectly laughing the
blue of the sky

White noise of water
Over beaver dams
Frogs and toads with music
Inspire a symphony

The Otters came

In Winter:
Muskrat houses like little
Wigwams
One almost expects to see
Smoke trailing from their peaks

Otter slides with fishy smelling scat
Coyote tracks

Oh! I forgot
Maybe on purpose?
Yard long black snakes
Wrist-thick in stunning repose
Bequeathing shakes!