The Salt Marsh

Written by Katherine Wu Seven Lakes High School, Texas, USA

Humming low, 

a hymn of wings and buzzing bodies. 

Dungeness crabs scuttle like restless mourners 

in silent prayer. 

The mud smells of salt and something older, 

brine and decay braided together, 

an inheritance carried by tides. 

Grass stalks bow under the weight of wind, 

whispering secrets to the water. 

This place knows how to hold loss, 

how to fold it gently into sediment 

until grief becomes silt, 

soft enough for roots to pierce. 

I walk the edge where earth meets water, 

watch oysters’ lone feet cling 

to the ribs of a sunken dock. 

Lamenting, they filter the sorrow 

grain by grain of sand, 

building shells from what is left behind. 

Somewhere in the reeds, 

a heron lifts its long neck skyward. 

Its wide wings beat against the dusk, 

stirring the air with benediction. 

I wonder what it means to stay. 

To root. To drown and rise again. 

And as the tide creeps closer, 

I leave footprints that fill with water, 

ephemeral graves, 

washing away.