Typha they are called,
their Latin botanical taxonomy.

Corn-dog looking plants on long
dried out stalks.
They puff like white dandelions
in the heat.

I am an adult
so I can give myself
permission
to act like a child.

Walking past them,
I break a cattail off,
the seedy mass,
already beginning to send
it's cotton into the wind.

I will correct Wikipedia.
Wind is not the only seed disperser
of the Typha.
The plants co-evolved
in a symbiotic relationship with
childlike humans, young and old.

I carry my cattail up Estill Street
turning my neck sharply
as I watch my seedy friends
drift where they land
on lawns, ditches, sidewalks,
and on the clothes of me --
some in my nose and mouth.

Everything so transient,
of course wilderness is transient.
Typhas are transient because they
clear the usually fogged vision of people.
That and the fluff makes good moccasins.

I felt a call to duty
as I carried the cattail along.
To profligate a plant
that sucks toxins like arsenic out of the water.