My wetlands because it speaks a language I know. The winds, the ripples, all the sounds speak to me. My mother feared she lost her Yiddish. I fear that I cannot communicate this language as well as I would like to. But there are others that do and I take heart that I am part of a movement of people that know the call of the red-winged blackbird as it sways on the tall phragmites or knows the words and poetry of the small fish breaking through the calm surface of the river, or the testimonials of the gulls finding a place to gather by themselves, and the solemn odes, the doggerels and shanties, the rhyming couplets, and the lines of melodies that the winds create on the back end of the river. The small islands and sandbars that show in low tide produce gurgles and bubbles toward the edges where I come to say hello. The crabs are forming independent colonies, occasionally showing a claw. The clouds move over and past the spot where I stand, shadows and light, sun and winds, the ebb and flow. This is life. Whether you stand here with me or move down the nearby streets, the tides are talking to the wind; the birds are conversing. Not too far off, the ocean. I wait for their songs.
