Thoughtful Thursday: Marsh Madness
“POOR MARCH. It is the homeliest month of the year. Most of it is mud, every imaginable form of mud, and what isn’t mud in March is ugly late-season snow falling onto the ground in filthy muddy heaps that look like piles of dirty laundry. “ ― Vivian Swift
March in Maryland is mercurial, winter on Monday and spring on Tuesday. Winds whip through bare tree limbs, pushing the waters out of the creeks and into the bay one day followed by flooding, torrential rains the next. Maryland in March has its fair share of mud but much of it is relegated to marshes, our hidden wetland treasure. Surely Ms. Swift has not been to our Chesapeake marshes because our mud is anything but homely!
Just as March is the transition month between spring and summer, marshes are the transition between bay and forest. It is a glorious biome that beacons you to explore while capturing you in a maze of pathways shrouded by ghost forests and vegetation. According to Erik Vance in The Place in Between, “On the one hand they are boggy, smelly places filled with spiders, pasty mud, and sharp reeds that poke you in a thousand different places. On the other , they are serene landscapes and among the most important ecosystems on Earth – not just for the animals that inhabit them but also the humans that observe them from the shore.”
Our gallery artists capture the mystery and wonder of marshes unique to the Chesapeake watershed. To see these marshes in all their glory, please visit our gallery in Chestertown or online at www.LesPoissonsGallery.com