The star-studded sky,
water reflecting the stars,
the dark land between.
Snow-covered mountains
in the northwest horizon
glisten in the sun.
A still warmer day,
warm, moist rain-smelling west wind,
like a summer’s dream.
Ice goes to the sea.
Now sails the fish hawk overhead,
looking for his prey.
Yesterday is like
a reflection in water.
Ideal inverted.
White-headed eagle
edgewise like a black ripple,
concealed in the sky.
Spring flowers flash out,
Blossoms preceding the leaf
suddenly bloom.
One frog begins then
the whole pond joins in until
all stop together.
A fit place for owls,
thick woods over white spruce swamp
where bog laurel grows.
Shad-bush in blossom
seen afar amid gray twigs
before its own leaves.
We float down river
through the still and hazy air,
the June-like warmth.
Deciduous trees
are now a mist of leaflets
against the dark pines.
Their leaves like flowers
the birches by the railroad
flash yellow on me.
Strong lights and shades now.
It is a day of shadows,
the leaves have so grown.
In the washing breeze
the undersides of leaves flash
new light on the year.
The trembling aspens
offer me a new summer,
fluttering my thoughts.
Crows with ragged wings
noiselessly circle their nest
high in a white pine.
When the darkness comes
do not the stars, like fireflies,
show their light for love?
Sometime we are calmed
like a still lake when there is
not a breath of wind.
The red undersides
of the white lily pads
exposed by the wind.
A Book of the Seasons , by Henry Thoreau
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2015
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