I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather.

May 10

The third day of rain. The river has again gone over the meadows, which were almost bare. 


P. M. —To Walden in rain. 

Some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum out in Cut woods; maybe a day, as it has rained steadily the last two days. It seems to bloom with or immediately after the bear-berry. 

I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather, for now I see and get near to large birds. Two quails whir away from the old shanty stubble-field, and two turtle doves go of from an apple tree with their clikit. Also at Walden shore a pigeon hawk (or else sharp shinned), with deep-brown back, went off from close at hand. 

I see there, just above the edge of the Pool in Hubbard’s Wood Path, the Viola blanda passing into the V. lanceolata, which last also is now in bloom, probably earlier there than in wetter places. May have been as early as the blanda. 

Where the pitch pines were cut some years ago on Thrush Alley, I now see birches, oaks, and pitch and white pines. 

On the railroad causeway against Trillium Wood, I see an apparently native willow, a shrub, with greenish bark and conspicuous yellow catkins, now in full bloom, apparently a little earlier than the Salix alba, but its leafets or bracts much less advanced and conspicuous. Another on the Walden road. What is it? 

Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, May 10, 1856

Some Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum out in Cut woods; maybe a day. See May 10, 1855  ("Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum, early blueberry, in bloom; probably may shed pollen.")

The third day of rain. I would gladly walk far in this stormy weather for now I see and get near to large birds. See April 19, 1852 ("To see the larger and wilder birds, you must go forth in the great storms like this. . . To see wild life you must go forth at a wild season. When it rains and blows, keeping men indoors, then the lover of Nature must forth."): May 13, 1852 ("They who do not walk in the woods in the rain never behold them in their freshest, most radiant and blooming beauty.") See also  A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Walking in the Rain

Just above the edge of the Pool in Hubbard’s Wood Path, the Viola blanda. See May 6, 1852 ("The first Viola blanda (sweet-scented white), in the moist ground . . . by this spring."). See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau the Violets

Where the pitch pines were cut some years ago on Thrush Alley. See April 28, 1856 ("Let me look at the site of some thick pine woods. . .and see what has sprung up.")

 On the railroad causeway against Trillium Wood, I see an apparently native willow,now in full bloom . . .apparently a little earlier than the Salix alba. See May 10, 1854 ("I perceive the sweetness of the willows on the causeway."); May 10, 1858 ("For some days the Salix alba have shown their yellow wreaths here and there, suggesting the coming of the yellowbird, and now they are alive with them");

 May 12, 1855 (" I perceive the fragrance of the Salix alba, now in bloom, more than an eighth of a mile distant. ");May 14, 1852 ("Going over the Corner causeway, the willow blossoms fill the air with a sweet fragrance, and I am ready to sing,"); June 6, 1856 ("That willow, male and female, opposite to Trillium Woods on the railroad, I find to be the Salix rostrata . . . one of the ochre-flowered . . . willows ."). See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, Willows on the Causeway

Mr. Prichard’s Canada plum will open as soon as it is fair weather.  See May 5, 1855 ("Canada plum and cultivated cherry and Missouri currant look as if they would bloom to-morrow.”); May 7, 1860 ("Canada plum in full bloom, or say in prime. Also common plum in full bloom?");  May 8, 1858 ("Broke off a twig of Prichard's Canada plum in the evening, from which I judge that it may have opened to-day."); May 10, 1855 ("Canada plum opens petals to-day and leafs. Domestic plum only leafs.”); May 12, 1856 ("Prichard’s Canada plum will probably bloom to-morrow.”); May 14, 1855 (“Domestic plums open; some maybe yesterday.”)

May 10.  See A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, May 10

The third day of rain –

I would gladly walk far in 

this stormy weather.

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 ©  2009-2026

https://tinyurl.com/hdt-560510

Moonlight reflections

June 13.




Approaching the pond down Hubbard's Path, after coming out of the woods into a warmer air, I see the moon's inverted pyramid of light shimmering on its surface. I am startled to see midway in the dark water a bright flame- like, more than phosphorescent light crowning the crests of the wavelets. Though one would have said they were of an intenser light than the moon herself, on coming near to the shore of the pond itself I see this is so many broken reflections of the moon's disk.


I see reflections of the moon seeming to slide along a few inches with each wave before they are extinguished like so many lustrous burnished coins poured from a bag. And I see how farther and farther off they gradually merge in the general sheen, which, in fact, is made up of a myriad little mirrors reflecting the disk of the moon with equal brightness to an eye rightly placed.

The pyramid or sheaf of light which we see springing from near where we stand is, in fact, only the outline of that portion of the shimmering surface that an eye takes in. If there were as many eyes as angles presented by the waves, covered with those bright flame-like reflections of the moon's disk, the whole surface would appear as bright as the moon; and these reflections are dispersed in all directions into the atmosphere, flooding it with light.

H.D. Thoreau, Journal, June 13, 1851

I see the moon's inverted pyramid of light shimmering on its surface.. . . which, in fact, is made up of a myriad little mirrors reflecting the disk of the moon See April 3, 1852 ("A pathway of light, of sheeny ripples, extending across the meadow toward the moon, consisting of a myriad little bent and broken moons")   See also A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June Moonlight and   Dogen:

~ Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water. Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky. The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long or short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky . ~

June 13. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau, June 13

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 © 2009-2021