There is a small pond in the woods near our house. The pond is an attraction to me, though small. It changes regularly, with the seasons, the weather and the time of day, and I enjoy making pictures there. A turtle of considerable size lives in the pond – we spotted each other once, before he slipped into the blackness.
I’ve never seen anyone else at the pond. I suspect that folks from the hills higher up drive by this spot regularly, intent on making their way off the mountain, unaware of the pond and its turtle. And truthfully, most would have little interest anyway. And that is their loss.
As Thoreau said of Walden Pond, “it is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding Nature continually repairs; no storms, no dust, can dim its surface ever fresh; a mirror in which all impurity presented to it sinks, swept and dusted by the sun’s hazy brush–this the light-dust cloth–which retains no breath that is breathed on it, but sends its own to float as clouds high above its surface, and be reflected in its bosom still.”
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