Let there be snapping turtles!
(Born on the first day of Autumn, 2016, South Pond.)
Tag: South Pond
No Virgins
There were 20 minutes when no one was there.
Not on the beach.
Not in the water.
Not across the pond.
I strip down in an instant
and dive into the September waters
without compassion
and daringly continue out
toward our town
center–
the altar of summer.
I lift myself onto the dock
and lie there
under the sun,
one middle-aged breast
deflating to each side.
No virgin offering
to this lasting day of summer.
And before I hear a car door slam
or the crunch of a stick underfoot,
I slip off the dock
and make my way back through the cool water to the shore.
I wrap myself in a towel,
and stand at the water’s edge
to let the sun kiss my face,
in communion with the stillness
of water
of Everything.
Just then, a head appears,
out of the soft ripples I left behind.
It’s the one we’ve watched grow from a chick on his mother’s back
to being left behind by the mating pair to come of age on his own.
The loon and I regard one another,
and then he dives under the water again,
and I sit down with a book.
Russ and Andi appear
in their beach chairs
behind me
in the grass.
And together
we hold the silence
of the eternal moment…
of this summer day
Until we’re startled by a flock of geese
who lift from the banks
and swoop across our view,
and circle the pond
and rise over the mountains
Heading south.
~
Regatta
While everyone is back at school
or at work,
the last rays of summer
speed West across South Pond
in a zillion points of white.
Like a city-scape
reflecting into space,
the competition is so dense
as to render the
deepest waters
white.
Amidst these miniature mariners of light,
a
single
Loon
propels himself
in the opposite
direction,
heading East
Chasing summer
in a one-man Olympic event–
His flamboyant breast stroke
Knocking tiny boats into the breeze.
His mate
no where to be seen.
Closer still,
the wind picks up
flattening white sails
against water
while others furiously tack
toward the Finish line.
I close my eyes,
unable to bear such weight,
waiting for
the
Sails to drop
the
Sailors to go home
the
Waters to still
and
the
single
Loon
to call for his
Mate
in the silent
repose
of
Summer’s
Surrender.
The “W” Word
It is time to “put the padlock on the gate” says the notice to members of South Pond, the timeless gathering place of summer.
This is crushing news to those of us who hold onto the sun until the ice freezes our fingers, and releases them, frost by frost, until we have lost our grip on summer, and even fall.
Today’s was a hard frost, but at least the sun is shining. Yesterday, when it was mostly grey, I saw my body flinging itself off a cliff over and over again. Luckily I was in my bed, under the covers, with a novel, ignoring the coming gloom of November.
In the evening, a friend invited us to gather around a fire in the woods behind her home. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to do anything. But I did, and I was a better for it.
As the first star pieced the sky, I soaked up as much yellow and orange and red as I could from the flames inside her pit. This is our way of capturing the sun, I thought. This is our way of making it ours, until it returns again to wake the world in tender greens.
Snow is the forecast this week. Snow. There. I said it. The “S” word. (But I refuse to say the “W” word–no matter what the forecast.)
As a Vermonter of 18 years, I accept snow around Halloween, although I welcome a balmy night on which to Trick or Treat. Either is possible this time of year, as the Earth begins to rock us toward the “W” word– into that long, white slumber of deep.
Kelly Salasin, Marlboro, VT
Summer’s Goodbye
Deer in the North
Owl in the West
Geese in the sky
Crickets in the grass
Clouds above
and below
as I float on the pond
Waters pregnant
with Summer’s Goodbye
Wondering,
like a Nursing Mother,
Will this be the last time?
~Kelly Salasin, New Moon, September 2011
This Vermont Life 