WILD PASTURES 



ing mud. Every such opening is seized 

 by the alder or the button bush, and the 

 cedars follow them; indeed, sometimes 

 the cedars, favored by the right wind or 

 the right bird carriers at seeding time, 

 slip in first, and little island clumps of 

 their dark bronze green stand here and 

 there over against the cadet blue of Blue 

 Hill which hangs like a beautiful drop- 

 curtain always on the westerly sky. 



Once, a half century ago or more, a 

 farmer and his men came down from 

 the pastures, and for purposes of their 

 own cut a ditch straight through the 

 middle of the bog to the open water. 

 The hundreds of scrawny night herons, 

 sitting on pale blue eggs in scraggly nests 

 in the cedar swamp must have heard the 

 cedars laugh as this went on. It was 

 the swamp's opportunity. Where the 

 farmer and his men with incredible 

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