To Walden

August 27.

Crickets sound much louder after the rain in this cloudy weather.  Hips of the early roses are reddening.  Lower leaves of the smooth sumach are red. Hear chic-a-day-day-day and crow; but, for music, reduced almost to the winter quire. Young partridges two-thirds grown burst away. The leaves of some young maples in the water about the pond are now quite scarlet, running into dark purple-red.

Paddle round the pond.  Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green.  The shore is so steep that much of the way a single leap will carry you into water over your head. It is nowhere muddy, and the bottom is not to be touched, scarcely even seen again, except for the transparency of the water, till it rises on the other side. Both fishes and plants are clean and bright, like the element they live in.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, August 27, 1852

Viewed from a hilltop, it is blue in the depths and green in the shallows, but from a boat it is seen to be a uniform dark green. . . .See September 1, 1852 ("Viewed from the hilltop, it reflects the color of the sky. Beyond the deep reflecting surface, near the shore, it is a vivid green. "): See also Walden ("Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill top it reflects the color of the sky, but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you can see the sand, then a; light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hill top, it is of a vivid green next the shore.”)

A brisk walk with the little brown dog in the damp woods this morning,  wood asters shining in the dim light  along the trail swept clean from yesterdays thunder shower – taking the turn home surprised to see how bright green the trees against the sky. August 27, 2022.