September 26, 1996

this morning the pond looks like marble. Rose and charcoal dissolving to dove, to guava, rouge. Only mallards pushing holes in the glass, so unlike the pond, deep in trees, almost camouflaged, startling as coming upon your reflection in a mirror, just there under trees and the wooden bar and the driftwood benches blackly jade with pines dripping into it, shadows close to my hair. What I didn’t have blinded me so I hardly saw the small birds, blue, pulling out of moss and needles as if reaching into the dark for their color