Poem

At Cardinal Marsh

by DIANE SCHOLL, Professor Emerita of English

On Sunday we drive to the marsh, corona sweeping the country in rising wet waves. In the parking lot we maybe interrupt a drug deal; dirty pick ups gun down the rutted road, spitting angry dust in their wake. You almost lose a shoe in the mudflats when you try to take a picture of the ring-necked ducks, gabbling and flying in quick hops to the riverbank. At first we’re disappointed: no cardinals in sight, the sky a pale blank slate.

When we see them, the pelicans cluster like hosts robed in white, heads tucked deep against their swollen chests. Sometimes one raises a flash of wing in the late light, points a yellow bill in the air with a gesture resembling joy.

On the news, bodies stacked like fish cool in trailer freezers, rows of coffins wait austerely for burial when this is over. We wonder where the pelicans go. We’re lucky to see them at all, we say. We say we want to stroke them, but they’re resting from their flight, just idling in the current, feathers clean as shriven snow.

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