Summer at the Wetlands

by Monica Colón

When I go outdoors, I ask for nothing more than air,

sky, a few bare plant stalks, and rocks or earth to sink

my shoes into. But summer's wealth overwhelms

me when it spills and fills the whole field of my senses.

Under names, this marshy swathe splits into a quilt

of greens—cattail, bulrush, joyweed, waterlily,

duckweed—and hems itself in cottonwoods.

Then we all unstitch together, so that I could

spin with the firewheels blazing in the sunny edges

or wear each Mexican hat. I could bury myself

in every white water blossom as the bees do, singing

their cello song that lifts into the realm of hawks

and kites. I could splash for gladness with fish and turtles,

drink from my own veins with the mosquito, fly laden

with myself like a coupling dragonfly. I could bow like a reed

under the weight of a scarlet-flashing blackbird.

Summer tells us why we call the earth mother:

she makes us, carries us, delivers us, feeds us, and then

we gawk at everything, milk-drunk,

not caring if we understand it or not.