The Salt Marsh at Dawn

The tide has left its silver breath upon the cordgrass, a wet calligraphy tracing the edge where the land gives up its solid secrets to the mud.

A heron, still as a rusted gate, waits for the first pulse of light to crack the grey shell of the sky, revealing the yolk of a copper sun.

The scent of brine and ancient rot drifts through the low, hanging mist, a thicket of breath from the earth breathing in the cold, salt air.

No wind has yet claimed the morning, only the slow, rhythmic pulse of the marsh, the heart of the world beating in the silt, patient and deep, under the rising day.