The prairies, laden heavy with golden flowers, are bending to time. The summer, weighted with golden light, is dimming some for the coming autumn. The air, thick with thunderstorm, is whispering something about fall. Cherokee Marsh is transitioning again (always, always), and I walk through the shafts of golden blossoms and sunlight thinking about my kid, off to college in a few short days, leaving us all in a daze.

Cattails are possibly the most versatile wild herbage—in terms of continuous human use—of all time. Evidence of cattail flour has been found by archaeologists on grinding stones from 20,000 years before the known dawn of agriculture.

It’s July 4, 1776, at the marsh. The only fireworks were the stars in the night sky before dawn. The only bugling is from trumpeter swans paddling on the water. The only drumming is a pileated woodpecker hammering a tree. The only picnics are elk feasting on bluegrass, clover, willow.