I May, I Might, I Must

If you will tell me why the fen
appears impassible, I then
will tell you why I think that I
can get across it if I try

This is by the American poet Marianne Moore, who died in 1972. It turned up as 'poem of the week' in my paper diary, to my amusement

Today was unusually windless, but the still air was heavy and saturated. Every particle seemed able to transition at will from air to mist to rain to cloud to sea. Boundaries dissolved. Water ran above us, below us, past us, ahead of us, and seemingly through us. It was glorious. Appropriately, our main wildlife sighting was dozens of seals; even they seemed confused about whether they should be in the sea or ashore

I don't know if the word 'fen' is used here - its origin is Norse, so it's not unlikely, though some distinguish bog (acid) from fen (more alkali). In England, the default assumption is that fen refers to the Cambridgeshire Fens but historically it has much wider use. In my South Leicestershire childhood, 'The Fen Lanes' were a network of roads linking nearby hilltop villages, traversing the lower land between them. I don't think the name appeared on any map, I wonder if it still endures there

Today we soaked up (sorry) the wonders of the fen - or the bog, as you will. Vibrant mosses, iron-brown water, glowing lichen, and bejeweled sedge. And we got across it