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When I worked part-time at Brentano's in the Chestnut Hill
Mall I got Fridays off, but still had to take the trolley out to
pick up my pay, since I have always lived a check-to-mouth
existence. I compensated by treating myself to a good dinner every
week at Legal Seafoods. Their menu is large, the cooking
excellent, the management efficient, the cocktails generous, the
waitresses pleasant and friendly, and the entire experience a
delight. By the time I started working full-time I had tasted
every sort of fish on their menu, but by then I had established a
ritual. I still made the trip out to Chestnut Hill Saturdays
around five-thirty.
A penny
H O T!!
On the path
One Saturday in particular tuned out to be a perfect July
day. The sun was hot, the sky totally cloudless and deep blue,
without the milky humid haze that crept in on Sunday and remained
for weeks afterward. And an occasional breeze kept the sunshine
from baking you unbearably. Not only that: after the baked stuffed
sole, after the sweet Manhattan before and the dry Chablis with,
after the dazzlingly good book to read over dinner, and the
waitresses saying "Glad to see you again," after the tables-full
of satisfied diners to watch, and the coffee to cap the feast and
a haiku or two doodled onto the receipt as an added tip --- after
the whole soul- and body-satisfying ritual, the sun was still a
couple of hours above the bird sanctuary across the pond when I
left the restaurant.
Blue sky
Brown reeds, and
Red carp!
I crossed the parking lot behind the shopping center and
found an inviting boulder close to the water's edge. Before me was
a break in the cat-tails that had run riot ever since The Blizzard
had buried them all winter and, I suspect, had kept birds from
thinning their crop of seeds. Just to my left was a tree that sent
a few branches out in front of me at just the perfect height to
shade the direct sunlight from my eyes. There was a slight breeze
rippling the surface; because of it, the trees on the shore
opposite, with the setting sun at their backs, threw elongated
dark reflections half across the water. In the calm patch to my
left, though, every tiny dent and furrow caught the rays of the
unclouded sun and compressed them into a million diamond
fireflies, winking and rioting and stabbing the eye with their
exuberance. It was as if the already oranging sun spread itself
in a smear of dazzle over half my squinted field of vision.
A Red canoe
Sits on
A red canoe . . . . .
Of course there were other places to put my eyes, other
things to notice. A brace of swallows dipped down and began
working the surface of the pond swiftly, efficiently, darting left
and right, rising in sudden enthusiasm and sweeping off. I could
never decide whether their swift little chitters were pique at
having missed some easy bug by a hair's breadth, or the jubilant
chuckle of triumph at some particularly tasty morsel. Closer to
shore, I could see in the sun's spotlight what their fuss was
about. Bugs galore seemed everywhere to be taking a cool
afternoon's jaunt across the surface of the pond. Stitching
through and around them were several sizes of dragonfly, some of
them hitched nose-to-tail like some doubly-winged flying machines
out of an old science-fiction engraving. A pair of stately ducks
chugged slowly and proudly past towing a dutiful chain of three
fuzzy ducklings in their wake. A seagull dropped in for a short
afternoon sit, finally flapping heavily off to circle strenuously
two or three times, before finding a respectable updraft to ride.
A little later half a dozen roof-sitters from behind me came
sliding swiftly in when one of them noticed a big bubble of heat
breaking from the ground. They rode the airy elevator up and up,
slowly circling inside its rising limits while it slid off slowly
to my left. They came around each edge of the heated air with a
minimal flap of rigid wings and a saucy shake of spread tail.
Then once aloft they broke from the pattern and, each one picking
a different destination, they set out in long, straight glide-
paths, wings locked in what only looked like effortless
indifference, and with only a hint of smugness about their
cleverness.
Swimming
In reflected sky
Seagull
I found I could squint into the sundazzle, as I never could
into the sun itself. Every tiniest ripple was diamond-studded. The
breeze, I saw, came and went -- now bearing down hard, now
slackening, now leaving a few isolated 'footprints', now
stretching the width of the pond before me. The direct pushing of
the wind against the water resulted in quick close ripples and
cross-currented wavelets jamming each other, much like heavily
crossed scorings on the surface of a rasp or file. Beyond the
reach of the wind, though, the ripples continued across the
surface, but in a calmer, deeper, more regular and unhurried
rhythm -- without the agitated counter-rhythms that so fractured
the surface under the even lazy lash of the wind's breath. The
calmer wavelets, deep and firm, had their regular winking glints.
When the breezes reached out to devil the waters in the direct
light of the sun, however, they became three times as active and
four times as bright.
Swallows
Harvesting
The pond
As I watched the slow, determined roll of the little wavelets
bash gently into the waterweeds a few feet before me and literally
collapse, snared in their nets or lulled to sleep by their gently
pulsating reflections -- all motion began to die, and finally
ceased entirely. The winds had grown bored with puffing on the so
responsive water, and became calm. It took several minutes for all
the little wavelets to come to rest. Finally, even the faint
echoes of waves bouncing back from weeds and rocks and shoreline
ran their weary courses, and the entire surface of the pond
breathed a relaxing sigh and became still. The tree-branch still
shaded my eyes, and I found I could stare directly into the glassy
quietness of the trees' dark reflections, straight across towards
the sun. The gem-hard winking flashes were gone, but the surface
was flooded with bright sunlight. It picked out on that deeply
dark surface what looked like a thin dusting of dry, golden
powder. I suspected it was really pollution -- the fallout of
chimneys and smokestacks and the parking cars I no longer noticed
at my back. But that afternoon, what it looked to my forgiving
eyes was a fine fall of pollen-grains defining the surface of the
water.
Dragonflies
Stitch
The surface.
Once the contrast between breezy and calm surfaces
registered, and my amazement abated, I noticed that everything was
never totally calm, the surface never totally free of sunglint. At
even its calmest the pond still shuddered and pulsated for reasons
of its own, throwing here a glint, there a glitter into the
deepening darkness. I wondered what could ruffle the still surface
so delicately. I knew there were fish. Every May for two or three
years in a row there had been a day on my march to work when, in
the shallow reeds near the shore, I could see the red knots of
rutting carp all squirming and spiralling in a compact mass, their
tails splattering the surface in final fishy orgasm. And every day
occasional splashes or ripples would mark the impertinent leap of
fish after some negligent insects. They leaped more in late dusk,
when wide-opened eyes focused generally on the surface could see
the red-gold shapes flipping instantaneously out and back again,
time after time -- given enough attention and patience. So perhaps
the occasional flashes were some inquisitive dorsal fins knifing
the surface from below.
Swirling whirlwind
Slowly rising...
Seagulls
Some of those regularly rolling glint-glint-glints were just
random ripples.I knew that from their rhythm. But as my eyes
wandered again across the surface, a new source surprised me. A
sudden slash of six or seven tiny dots of light ran across my
vision just a few feet in front of me. I was immediately focussed
there, hoping to see the faintly red-gold ovoids of a school of
fish. What I saw instead was a spidery little water-skimmer spread
rigidly and resting on the faintly bobbing surface. Then as I
watched its spasmodic jerking across the surface-tension, I was
rewarded by a sudden string of glint-glint-glints streaking off
with it -- and there it was! The little mite pressed on the water
with no more pressure than a hair, yet even that quick, gentle
caress, in this clear air and direct sun, gave off sparks! I
opened my gaze to the entire pond, and sure enough, most of those
meteoric little spurts were the length and quickness of a water-
skimmer's dash. So responsive was the surface that I could pick
out bug-trails from their errant ripples clear across the pond,
though even the original skimmer I had noticed lay at rest totally
invisible only a step or two away from me.
A breeze
And the mirror
Shatters
A breeze returned briefly, to my right, in the middle of the
pond, then stilled -- but the resultant rippling spread into my
calmly perfect mirror in minutes. Suddenly there was too much
sundazzle to find waterskimmer wakes. The sun had shifted a little
lower, and I shifted pose and gaze to prevent blindness. The
swallows were back, I thought, this time over at the far edge of
the pond. It looked to me as though they were so intent on prey
and so close to the surface that, three or four times, they
splashed into the water in their eagerness. But I maligned their
expertise, because I had never seen a kingfisher before -- that
was what they really were. At first I thought the splashes were
fish, and expected to see some crafty seagull scoop up a dinner.
But no, I only saw what I thought were hovering swallows bashing
the surface too far away for me to make out exactly what was going
on.
Calm stream.
A fish leaps out!
Splush...
I concluded -- incorrectly -- that they were chasing bugs
down to the surface. Then suddenly a fish did surface near some
lily-pads to my left, confirming my incorrect assumption. It was
getting late, the boulder under me was hard, and the sun was
larger and redder and much closer to the treetops. I widened my
eyes and watched the surface where I had spotted the first
circles, promising myself I would go once I had been rewarded with
the sight of one leaping fish. I waited, eyeballs skinned and
pointed nowhere -- as I used to wait hoping to see lightning
streak from the rumbling sky, or to catch the long, lemon-yellow
shriek of a Perseid meteor on those August nights of predictable
showers. A huge splash to my left caught me totally unprepared,
then another halfway across the pond. Then, just as I had about
given up, right in the center of my gaze the red teardrop-taper of
a fish, floppily ungainly out of the water, splashed once out of
the surface and splashed again as it dropped heavily back -- and
the concentric spread of ripples laughed out across the surface
louder and louder at the sight. I smiled my thanks, tested
stiffnesses in my back and limbs, and walked slowly off to catch
my trolley home. On the way I reflected on all the irritations and
frustrations and sorrows and losses that I had not been thinking
of for the previous water-laved hour and a half. I wondered if
perhaps I had been meditating, without ever realizing it.
Fish-leap!
Then only
Ripples . . . .
Love,
===Anon.