O:JA&L Poetry: All forms & styles
AMERICANA
John Brantingham
CATTAIL MEDITATION
Do not imagine that your interest
in cattails is a distraction from your
real work. Your work matters, yes of course,
but if you cannot see cattails, the rest
is lost, isn’t it? Do not imagine
walking the marsh and hearing red-wing blackbirds
as they ride cattails in blusting wind
wastes time. They teach the nature of being,
and the nature of being takes all your life
to learn if you are lucky to live that long.
Cattails and blackbirds are real. What you worry
about so often is some imagined grief
that you have made up. Listen to blackbird song.
Stare at cattails. Don’t lose yourself in hurry.
About the writer:
John Brantingham is currently and always thinking about radical wonder. He is a New York State Council on the Arts Grant Recipient for 2024, and he was Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks’ first poet laureate. His work has been in hundreds of magazines and The Best Small Fictions 2016 and 2022. He has twenty-two books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction.
Image: Aubade: Morning in the Marsh (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. Public domain via MidJourney AI. 2025
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprints Buttonhook Press, HOT BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Issues, and HIGH BUTTON PRESS Contemporary Art, supports writers and artists worldwide.
Explore O:JA&L’s Buttonhook Press offerings on Amazon.
Subscribe to the O:JA&L YouTube channel.
Become an O:JA&L Member through Patreon.
Follow O:JA&L on Facebook.
Support Pamelyn Casto’s text for writers: Flash Fiction: Alive in the Flicker
Support O:JA&L’s free presses.
