GUEST DIARIST: Ah Spring! The translucent ice has melted on Emerald Pool. The snowdrops are blooming in the yard. The skunk cabbage is popping up along the roadside amid the sand of winter. The day lilies are showing signs of life. The water of the Shepaug, like the water of Great Falls, is washing away the rotting leaves. Spring, Passover, Easter: times of remembering and looking ahead - a new beginning!
From the Haggadah:
"Were it our mouths were filled with a
singing like the sea,
And our tongues awash with song, as
waves-countless,
And our lips to lauding, as the skies
are wide,
And our eyes illumined like the sun
and the moon,
And our hands spread-out like the
eagles of heaven,
And our feet as fleet as fawns,
Still, we would not suffice in thanking
You, Lord God-of-us.
For those that sow with tears, with joy
will reap.
Walks-on the walker crying, bearing
the sack of seed;
then comes the comer, rejoicing,
carrying his sheaves."
PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: "Emerald Pool"! To call it a pond seems an exaggeration. One must bushwack through forest to get to the shoreline except for where a remote trail leads by one side. To people it's not much use. Why is Emerald Pool here? I have no idea - an idea of foresters or beavers, perhaps? To the west the land falls off in an area known as "the boulder field" where one scrambles over stones as large as refrigerators and box cars and the forest grows in the crevices. Maybe the pool is merely the result of a dimple in boulders covered over and clotted with dark mud. As forsaken by people as it is, it is a meeting place for all sorts of animals who share its cool waters. It seems even more animal-friendly for being so small. In the summer it is where deer and great blues, frogs and water lilies, beavers and water striders meet.
It is in this remote spot that the last of the season's ice is just giving way to spring; as if right here the season was on the edge of tipping, the last of winter melting into the pool as the earth's axis positioned itself for spring. Even as I watched the leaves of 2008 swallowed by the dark mud, I also knew that shoots deep in the earth had begun wiggling. If I return the next time the sun shines, I may hear peepers.
