The oak leaves continue to fall, opening more and more the view across the pond. Each day, it changes, with each moment revealing just a bit more blue and a little less rusty brown, more of the small island across the way and its pine spires, more of the farther shores and their reedy coves.
Most of the leaves fall on land, and with all the recent blowing and gusting of the wind, it’s surprising that the pond doesn’t claim more of them than it does. And I think this way until I take a walk down there and see the nooks and crannies, the jagged indentations, that are the pond’s embroidered edges, packed with leaves, slick and glistening in their final throes before they become one again with the basic substances from which they were fashioned.
A flock of Canada geese rises in a great convention, its leader honking them into submission, tapping into their ancient instincts, as they soar just feet above the water, their characteristic, large V-formation reflected in its depths. A lone bald eagle glides languidly over the pines on the small island, peers down at itself in the liquid mirror and disappears among the misty greens and browns on a far shore. Ducks ”“ too quick in flight for easy identification ”“ dash hurriedly through the chill November air, bound for a cozier nook, while blue jays congregate in the now-bare maple just beyond my porch, waiting for the squirrels to grow bored with picking through millet to get at the prized sunflower seeds.
Each day reveals more to me as the leaves fall: more water, more land, more sunsets, when the late-afternoon sky goes from standard, cloud-smeared blue or slate to bands of crimson, purple and fiery gold. But the law of mutability is alive and well there, too, as it’s all over in the blink of an eye, as though all the forces that constitute the upper atmosphere join together in a final push to splash the evening sky with colors too rare to qualify, and then just as quickly, pull the plug, leaving us in darkness again.
And then, as if out of nowhere, unannounced, stealthy and sly, a sliver of a moon appears above the black water, its Cheshire-cat grin, as a friend so playfully put it, reflecting on the rippling pond, reaching, reaching, lighting the way for whomever or whatever it is in the night that needs guiding or comfort ”“ or both.
Such is what this window proffers me, this humble otherwise inconsequential 5-by-7-foot expanse of glass set into the wall in just the right place, and that, in other surroundings, would look out over nothing of great value, or nothing memorable. Here, it is so much more than a window. It’s a visual conduit that takes me each day into new territory, new perspectives, new angles, with nature aptly living up to her reputation as a creative director whose endless supply of raw material is ever new, ever stunning and never disappointing.
From here, I see it all ”“ the pond’s mirror-like serenity on calm days, its restlessness on windy days, its field-like vastness in winter, along with the ever-changing color spectrum of tree and shrub, the endless activity of the creatures that call this place home ”“ and all without ever having to leave this room at all.
— Rachel Lovejoy, a freelance writer living in Lyman, who enjoys exploring the woods of southern Maine, can be reached via email at rachell1950@yahoo.com.
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