This moment each year
the setting sun reflecting
from both pond and lake.
May 27, 2019
May 27, 2015
Now first I notice a linty dust on the surface of the dark river at the Hemlocks, evidently from the new and downy leaves. These expressions of the face of Nature are as constant and sure to recur as those of the eyes of maidens, from year to year, — sure to be repeated as long as time lasts.
It is a new and peculiar season when this phenomenon is observed. Rivers flow already bearing the dust of summer on their bosoms. The dark river, now that shades are increased, is like the dark eye of a maiden.
Azalea nudiflora blooms generally.
Hear a black and white creeper sing, ah vee vee, vee vee, vitchet vitchet vitchet vitchet.
A peculiarity of these days is the first hearing of the crickets' creak, suggesting philosophy and thought. No greater event transpires now. It is the most interesting piece of news to be communicated, yet it is not in any newspaper.
Melvin and Skinner tell me of three wild geese, to their surprise seen within a week down the river, — a gander and two geese, — which must be breeding here. Melvin got near them a fortnight ago. They are too much disturbed to rear a brood, I think.
Melvin tells of seeing once in June dead shad-flies washed up on the North Branch in windrows, along the shore.
Golden senecio, at least to-morrow.
Went by Temple's. For rural interest, give me the houses of the poor, with simply a cool spring, a good deal of weather-stained wood, and a natural door-stone: a house standing somewhere in nature, and not merely in an atmosphere of art, on a measured lot; on a hillside, perchance, obviously not made by any gardener, amid rocks not placed there by a landscape gardener for effect; with nothing "pretty" about it, but life reduced to its lowest terms and yet found to be beautiful.
This is a good foundation or board to spring from. All that the natives erect themselves above that will be a genuine growth.
Blue-eyed grass out.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 27, 1859
Now first I notice a linty dust on the surface of the dark river at the Hemlocks. See June 4, 1854 (“The surface of the still water nowadays looking like dust at a little distance. Is it the down of the leaves blown off?”) and note to June 4, 1857 (“I observed yesterday, the first time this year, the lint on the smooth surface of the Assabet at the Hemlocks, giving the water a stagnant look. It is an agreeable phenomenon to me, as connected with the season and suggesting warm weather. I suppose it to be the down from the new leaves.”)
These expressions of the face of Nature are sure to be repeated as long as time lasts. April 18, 1852 ("For the first time I perceive this spring that the year is a circle.”); September 24, 1859 ("Young men have not learned the phases of Nature; they do not know what constitutes a year, or that one year is like another."); May 5, 1860 ("It takes us many years to find out that Nature repeats herself annually”)
The dark river, now that shades are increased, is like the dark eye of a maiden. See June 6, 1855 ("You see the dark eye and shade of June on the river as well as on land.”); June 9. 1856 ("It is a dark eyelash which suggests a flashing eye beneath .”); May 29, 1857 ("the sunniness contrasts with the shadows of the freshly expanded foliage, like the glances of an eye from under the dark eyelashes of June.”);May 29, 1857 ("It was like the first bright flashings of an eye from under dark eyelashes after shedding warm tears."); May 29, 1857 ("I sit on the top of Lee's Cliff, looking into the light and dark eye of the lake.")
Azalea nudiflora blooms generally. See note to May 31, 1853 ( It blossomed at the old election time, and he thought it 'the handsomest flower that grows.’”)
Hear a black and white creeper sing, ah vee vee, vee vee, vitchet vitchet vitchet vitchet. See May 30, 1857 ("In the midst of the shower, though it was not raining very hard, a black and white creeper came and inspected the limbs of a tree before my rock, in his usual zigzag, prying way, head downward often, and when it thundered loudest, heeded it not.”). Compare April 28, 1856 ("I hear to-day frequently the seezer seezer seezer of the black and white creeper, . . . suggesting still warmer weather, —that the season has revolved so much further."); May 11, 1856 ("The black and white creeper also is descending the oaks, etc., and uttering from time to time his seeser seeser seeser. What a rich, strong striped blue-black (?) and white bird”). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, the Black and White Creeper
The first hearing of the crickets' creak, suggesting philosophy and thought. See May 18, 1860 ("The creak of the cricket has been common on all warm, dry hills, banks, etc., for a week, - inaugurating the summer."); May 22, 1854 (“The song suggests lateness, but only as we come to a knowledge of eternity after some acquaintance with time. . . . . Only in their saner moments do men hear the crickets. . . .A quire has begun which pauses not for any news, for it knows only the eternal.”); May 24, 1857 (“Hear the first cricket as I go through a warm hollow, bringing round the summer with his everlasting strain.”); May 26, 1852 ("To-night I hear many crickets. They have commenced their song. They bring in the summer.”); May 30, 1855 ("Is it not summer now when the creak of the crickets begins to be general?”); June 1, 1856 (“Was soothed and cheered by I knew not what at first, but soon detected the now more general creak of crickets”); June 4, 1857 ( “the creak of crickets, which affects our thoughts so favorably, imparting its own serenity. It is time now to bring our philosophy out of doors.”)
Golden senecio, at least to-morrow. See June 6, 1858 ("Golden senecio is not uncommon now")
Blue-eyed grass out. See May 29, 1852 ("Blue-eyed grass [in bloom]."); May 29, 1853 ("That exceedingly neat and interesting little flower blue-eyed grass now claims our attention"); May 29, 1856 (“Blue-eyed grass, probably to-morrow.”); May 31, 1854 (“Blue-eyed grass, apparently in pretty good season.”); June 6, 1855 (“Blue-eyed grass maybe several days in some places.”); June 15, 1851 (“The blue-eyed grass, well named, looks up to heaven.”); June 15, 1852 ("The fields are blued with blue-eyed grass, — a slaty blue. "); June 15, 1859 ("Blue-eyed grass at height."); June 19, 1853 ("I see large patches of blue-eyed grass in the meadow across the river from my window"); June 20, 1852 ("The blue-eyed grass is shut up. When does it open?"); June 20, 1852 ("The blue-eyed grass is shut up. When does it open?"); July 6, 1851("Blue-eyed grass is now rarely seen. “)
On the way up the dogs are let loose and they dutifully walk along the trail in front of us. I veer off on the last steep and get up to my chair in time to take several pictures of a the sunset through open clouds in the west. A jet pass is over headed for Europe. The sun is setting so at the right moment is reflecting both from the lake and the pond —and still has more north to go. At dusk we head back regular way and both can walk in the dark without lights as the path is illuminated by the phosphorus of paint. Every rock that is to be avoided as marked and the rest is a fairyland of of lights pulling us through the woods.
This moment each year
the setting sun reflecting
from both pond and lake.
~zphx 20190527
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