You set out with a plan today, bringing your papers with you and even lunch. But several fishing men have occupied the water below the dam in Barton Pond, and besides the lake, park workers are running a noisy machine mowing the lawn. You know: Queen Ann's Laces and Hawkweeds will all be gone, the lakeside will be bare and there will be no good summer day for a while. In spring, the ecological burns have already killed the plants along the railway, and the Silver River never returns this summer. You end up wandering aimlessly. On the riverside, you stop to watch a duck wading upstream. This part of the river is shallow. You can see everything through. A rock sits in the water, small but effectively changes the water flow making waves. And the waves make marks on the rock too: its body appears in dark red under water while its top is white out of water and in between dark green moss grows and clings. As the water level gets higher, slightly overtopping the rock, the waves assume a different pattern. Everything looks alive in the sun. Those pebbles in the shallow water, like golden coins, are so shiny as if they were to float to the surface, and it is hard to tell what are on the water surface and what are on the riverbed. When the sun is gone for a moment, everything becomes dead and sinks to the dark bottom. Despite this interconnectedness of things, the duck still has to make it to where he wants to go by himself; a baby fish, hanging around with some thin weeds on the water edge, to live or perish, must face his own fate; and that hawk you just run into on the trail, alone, perched on tree branches, understands solitude better than anybody else. He also knows: what's absolutely necessary for life is minimal and all the rest are but luxury.
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