In Their Glory

On Saturday morning I took one of my favorite walks — through the Franklin Farm meadow, around a lake, through a woods and back home. It is a varied terrain of shade and sunlight, and the day was so warm I could feel the old earth turning and sending its shoots skyward. Geese were grazing on deadnettle and other early spring flowers.

I've walked this way for years now and no longer see just the path ahead of me, the rough fields on either side. I see what has been and what will be again, the tall grasses of midsummer, the chicory and Queen Anne's lace. I hear the crescendo of cicadas. The meadow soil has a memory, and so do I.

The walk was so lovely that I went back later with my camera. The setting sun slanted across the pond and lit up the cattails. I found a spot under a Bradford pear where I could snap meadow, pond and woods. All these humble sights that I look on in my wanderings, that have made me feel connected to this place, they were transformed in the mellow light of early evening. I saw them in their glory — and captured them that way.