Sprangle-topped, and prostrate
swamp timothy suffers
more so than water grass
in the hottest part of summer
an upland San Joaquin desert,
at road’s edge on a levee
in a lentic, seasonal wetland.
A plant community of silver-gray
quail bush foliage, a yellow-ray
of the daisy-like florets;
Dark, shiny leaves of alkali-scrub,
the gum plant;
the iodine bush,
knobby, green-stemmed, lonely
shrub of salt playas and mudflats;
pickleweed, in jointed segments
short and nearly round.
Salt grass, pinkish and purple,
rising out of the mud;
the spike rush colony, upright,
spherical, growing to keep
its head out of the back-waters.
Alkali bulrush, obligate
of the wetlands, and alkali flats,
upright and angular in large stands;
The cattail, a cinnamon-brown,
sausage-shaped spike on a stem,
a tall reed in leafy rostrums.
Hardstem bulrush, a giant sedge
with bright green stems
branching in clusters at the top.
A reed Native Tache used for baskets,
mats, houses, clothing, and canoes.
—
Stephen Barile is an award-winning poet from Fresno, California, Pushcart Prize nominee, and former member of the Fresno Poets Association. He attended Fresno Pacific University, and CSU Fresno. His poems have been anthologized, published in numerous journals, both print and on-line. He taught writing at Madera College, and CSU Fresno.
