It’s cyclical, it starts somewhere in the middle and comes right around. The cattail plant grows all over this land, the middle, the end. Where does the story begin?

In a circle there is no end. Boundaries are linear on paper, they follow rivers, natural limits, straight lines. Map it out and the land will contradict. Think of a family, a community. See the descendants spread out, move in other directions. Our life stories do not move in a straight line.

Think of a spiral and how it moves. Its’ everywhere, in all directions. Circular, slight movements of patterns. The small movements of change.

Is the cattail a nomadic plant? The sun rises and sets, the heat desertlike and more intense. Water evaporates from the marsh. Plants die, their husks crumbling on the marsh floor, make the swamp more shallow. The plants do not return one year, but will the next. Small shoots, the weeks pass, they turn to cottonseed; once so dense, now wind can carry them anywhere.

The elder plants watch it all, shoots blooming or not, the seeds spreading, the hands of a woman writing, sketching, gathering. She too has watched these plants grow and die and grow again. Pressed them flat, bound them with copper wire, the heat from her fingers warming the metal, briefly. Does the story start here? She casts her own face, creates something familiar. Does the mystery end? Currentlike, the energy moves, pulls her farther.