BOG BOGLES 



about, is hardly to be seen, and you will 

 wonder at the absence of the millions of 

 serried stems of pickerel weed that held 

 the outer defences with halberds and made 

 them blue with flaunting banners of the 

 bog's advance guard. 



If you will look over the boat's side as 

 you glide through open water near the 

 edge you will see these, lying in heaps, 

 blades pointing bravely to seaward almost 

 a half-fathom deep, slain by the winter's 

 cold, indeed, but their bodies a bulwark on 

 which younger warriors will stand firmly 

 in the skirmish line this year. Already the 

 slender spears of these prick upward out 

 of the gray tangle at bottom, and it will 

 not be long before they stab the surface, 

 eager for the accolade of the field marshal 

 sun. 



In the little channels up which you glide 

 tiny tides flow back and forth, driven, no 

 20 1 



