The river is shallow today. At a corner of Barton Pond, covered by water lilies and with a jungle of weeds underneath (vaguely visible and easily imagined), while waiting for those turtles (seven of them) to come out again, millions of sounds and voices reach you from the swamp-like water body, telling you this seemingly dead and quiet water is more alive than anything. You open your eyes and ears wide. However, your eyes trace ripples (there are so many of them, large or small) keenly on the water surface all in vain: nothing is seen happening. It is only at a casual glance, you spot a fish tail lifted up between two water lily leaves, making no wave or sound. And it's so near you! Meanwhile your ears are drawn to the cry of a pair of gulls, and those weak voices have been totally ignored. More than an hour has passed. Still, the turtles haven't shown up. You decide to give up: who knows they haven't swum away slyly under the water while your eyes are busy chasing ripples on the surface and ears caught by shrill gull cries?
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P.S. On the water edge, a little dragon fly has picked a single grass out of many for whatever reasons you don't know. She perches on the tip of its tall and thin stem and holds on to its bent body obstinately with zeal in the winds, dancing into an ecstasy. And she comes back again and again only to it. What a delicate creature she is, yet so daring.