The expansive savanna of mud and grass gives life to mussels, fiddler crabs and produces abundant life to feed the fish of the ocean ... giving it a taste that different ... sweeter ... than those of the open sea.
It makes the ocean brown rather than crystal clear but ... when the shrimp taste better because of it ... who can complain?
I love the pungent aroma of the Marsh at low tide on a hot day ... it's the smell of sex in the Tropics as Marshall Chapman says ... and she's right because it's intoxicating!
Sailing across the causeway connecting Tybee Island to the chain of islands leading to the Mainland with the windows rolled down on a sunny day is ... orgasmic.
I have vivid memories of my Father sitting on his dock that juts out into the middle of the Marsh becoming one with it.
"I can never leave here," he once said as I sat there with him. "I love the Marsh."
And though he died and my sister has his ashes I can't help but believe he's part of it somehow ... having invested so much of himself in it.
Sarah, her girls and I were driving on the Tybee Road yesterday on a warm, bright, sunny day and the Marsh is turning from green to gold.
In winter it will turn brown and the ocean will carry the reeds to Sea, cleaning the haven of life for its next cycle.
Brown ... yellow ... blazing greens ... and golden are the colors of the Marsh.
Those are the seasons as Sarah and I move into a golden stage.
