Saying Goodnight

The pond last May.

I have been out saying goodnight to the day. The rain is gone, the sun will be out just long enough to set, and the evening air is heady with the scent of lilac and lily of the valley. The whole world turned green overnight it seems; every tree wears a full crown of leaves that the slightest breeze sets whispering. Freshly plowed ground at the nearby farm is dark from the rain that fell all day and smells rich and brown and earthy.

A robin takes a bath in a roadside puddle, dipping its head under the water and enthusiastically splashing water over its wings, chirping the whole time as if singing in the shower. I hear the song of the Baltimore oriole but I don’t catch a glimpse of it. Swallows swoop and dive over the pond and my footsteps startle something at water’s edge. There’s a heavy splash and a ring of wavelets; perhaps it’s the otter that lives along the bank or one of a pair of muskrats that I often see swimming in the evening. Red-winged blackbirds chitter overhead and a goldfinch whistles at me.

I have forgotten my camera so I take mental snapshots of the pond in the melting light, of the trees staring at their reflections in the water, of the birds that flit and flutter. Sunrise and sunset encase another day. I would send the peace of this one out into the world.