Peeper |
On returning next morning I enter a quiet as profound as the noise of the night. The pond and the air are absolutely still. Yesterday's sunshine matches the mood by transitioning to cool mists. My senses decelerate.
Misty morning |
With the nocturnal creatures withdrawn an alternate logic
envelops the pond, restorative and protective. I appreciate the stillness as a
dynamic pause rather than an absence, a necessary phase of non-action. The
visible world waits and offers compensations.
Lichens and mosses glow themselves into prominence on rocky
surfaces. As the sponges of the terrestrial world they prosper when the
diffused light and watery air of an "Irish day" make life on bare
granite verdant and decorative. They lift the biological world into notice in a
continuum of organisms from tiny to towering that both colonize and create
niches.
A scamper away from the pond a crevice opens to subterranean
recesses where salamanders lodge in domiciles that never freeze. I imagine myself
in miniature spelunking through their caverns with a miner's lamp. A massive
approaching amphibian shakes the ground and walls. I scatter distasteful
repellants and stand aside. The repellants will biodegrade harmlessly in an
hour, plenty of time to get myself back to the land of giants.
I emerge from underground and meander to the shore. Moisture
condensing on an overhanging tree drops to the water, radiating ripples across
the pond. I climb aboard a leaf to spin hilariously in the ripple surf, a final
allowance of the mode in miniscule.
Ripples |
Silence muffles the edges of time. Submerged salamanders
lower their respiration and breathe through their skins. A slow pulse disperses
energy to the miracle of life.
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