Lost in Thought

Looking east on Springfield Avenue, down Springfield from the Lackawanna trestle, for the first time I saw Briant 's Pond from the train -- a first sight of something I grew up beside, had seen 1000 times or more, a place that had sheltered me and given sanctuary and somehow sanctified me as it gave protection. Woods are so much bigger and more expansive as a child, or perhaps the built world really has encroached farther, pushing the boundaries in.

Today I saw Briant's Pond from a distance -- the Spring Lake, Summit's Spring Lake, as it was once known -- it sparkled and shimmered silver in the clear March morning sun -- bejeweled, and visible probably only due to the lack of leaves. And because of the conductive power, the thinned air, vacuum-like grace of a frosted March dawn. Wondering what harm may come to the daffodils, and the not yet tulips. The apple crop upstate. The budded realm.

All the ascendant women of Short Hills and Millburn are lovely, climbing the platform and stairs, on paths through debris, stepping past ivy glen. Like Bradford Pears outside the East Orange Fire Department training ground.