For a season, I spend every day
on phragmites control, carrying
a 3-gallon pack of herbicide on my back.
Sloshing through swamps in brutal 
heat, this physical, thankless work
with no instant gratification, a lesson.
This is the most important labor—
what crowds out beauty never truly 
goes away, all you can do is mitigate damage.
Rhizomes produce roots and offspring even if broken
from the parent plant. If left unchecked, a wall so dense
will decimate a wetland and endanger the wildlife habitat.
I build on decades of effort, the steady undoing
of damage to come, slow and necessary, I peel back
the light, see the water flow, the hard change takes more time.