WILD PASTURES 



ten thousand of the fragrant white blooms 

 in sight. Twice as many more were 

 hidden by bulrush and pickerel weed. 

 On Sundays and holidays boatloads of 

 trolley trippers paddle and push among 

 them and carry them off by the hundred, 

 yet they make no mark on the visible 

 supply. The decay of the leaves and 

 stems of these add to the under-water 

 foothold of the bog, but after all it must 

 be the reedy stems, sagittate leaves, and 

 interwoven roots of the pickerel weed 

 that are its main foundation. 



Steadily seaward over the foundation 

 thus laid progresses the long, definite 

 front of the saw-edged marsh grass. 

 Once it interlocks its roots along the 

 mud surface formed for it, it leaves no 

 room for the freer-growing denizens of 

 the shallows. In among the marsh grass 

 grows no flaunting flag of pickerel weed, 

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