At 10am I walk to the Glen
Through the parking lot out front.
(Only ten cars parked here today)
across the pavement.
(Do all of natures bounties have a paved parking lot you must cross before you reach them)?
Some Japanese tourists, gathering together for a walk,
And a late middle aged couple.
I pass them and enter the tunnel cut through the layered slate,
at its exit a used kleenex.
I pick it up, to deposit in a trash can later.
There are many trash cans along the path.
I emerge from the tunnel onto the sentry bridge.
Looking down at the running brook below me, maybe 150 feet below
I stand and wait for the other hikers to come through the tunnel and pass me.
They stay awhile on the bridge,
with their cameras pointing downward at the first scenic view
of water rushing down and hitting a wall that makes it take a 90 degree turn into the brook.
After a while they move on, and I still stand there.
Seeing a well in the brook, I notice a few coins dropped in
(for wishes or offerings, or both maybe)?
I find a nice shiny penny in my pocket, and finding the exact center of the pool, I drop it down.
It wavers back and forth a bit, but doesn't flip at all until it finally hits the pool, and then it flips and zig zags until it is out of site.
I walk across the bridge and come to the first trash can, and removing the lid a bit to one side, and I drop in the kleenex.
There is a choice here, to walk along this path which I have walked twice already, which goes through the gorge, with many fantastic waterfalls and tunnels and steep cliff walls towering above, or to cut back and go up a steep set of winding slate stairs which ascend Glen mountain. I'd never taken that second path, so today I do.
Up Up turn right.
Up up, turn right.
A sort of little enclosed fortress of rock with slate benches here, but I don't stop but keep going.
Up up turn left,
up up, at the top is a dirt and gravel trail.
I follow it a bit and it comes to a y and seeing a grassy clearing to the left, away from the gorge, I turn that way.
Stepping into the clearing, it is well kept.
An old man dressed in kahki is there on the other side of the clearing, and a small pond is between us. He continues on his own path, and I walk toward the pond.
The leaves on the trees are just starting their yellow tinge, and some of the leaves have fallen, sparsely littered across the mown grass.
I get to the edge of the pond, and work my way around it, as softly as I can. There is hardly any part of the pond that is not covered with either lily pads, or the bright green pond scum, or algae. White lilly flowers are also abundant, with the yellow pollen in their middles. I watch a honey bee harvesting some for a bit on one flower, and then move on to the next. A small blue dragon fly also feeds, (water or smaller bug, I don't know) from the ponds surface.
I few steps more and Plop Plop a couple of frogs jump from the side back into the pond.
A few steps more, and plop, goes another, emerging two feet into the pond, surfacing in the middle of a spot of algae, the same bright colour green as himself.
He blinks and blinks looking at me, a nervous twitch I think.
"Can it see me?
Can it see me",
the nervous twitching blinks seem to say.
"Yes, I can see you buddy, but you're safe, You don't have to worry about me, I'm just doing a little communing with nature, is all, and you are part of it". I move on again, which startles him , just as he had settled down , this time he dives to deeper depths. No matter how softly I step, I will startle them, with this white t-shirt on. Plop Plop, they keep jumping in, mostly dissappearing into the depths, some reemerging to keep their nervous eyes upon me.
A little further on, the land becomes sandy, and a little mucky. Raccoon prints are their, along with some deer tracks.
The tracks deepen toward the water, where they must have leaned down to drink.
I head away from the pond into the center of the clearing, where there is an information sign, telling of the history of the place. A great victorian mansion used to stand here a way long time back, and the whole glen was privately owned. Visitors would come from as far away as Europe, taking a steam boat down the 65 mile length of Lake Seneca, and then taking a coach up to here. The mansion eventually burned down, and the land here was all subsequently bequeathed to the town of Watkins.
I walk around the clearing, almost back to where I entered it where there is a big slate bench. It looks more like an ancient offering table actually, being a little too high and wide to be a bench. It is all slate, even its two legs on either side being layers of slate.
I climb up on it and as it is more suited as a bed then a bench, I lay down on it.
An exiled emperor, now become the four of swords.
I look up and see a squirrels nest high up in the oak tree above me. A soft wind blows, with a sweet scent on it. Judging from the direction, it is carrying the smell of the water lilies to my nose. An acorn falls from the tree.
It must be nice to live right where your food source is, I think, looking back up at the squirrels nest.
A green and much larger dragon fly than the pond one buzzes over me, momentarily stopping to hover, and then continuing on his way, from my right to left, or north to south. A moment later, the same thing happens.
Was it the same dragon fly, or was it another? It followed the same pattern exactly.
Maybe a glitch in the matrix?
Or maybe a traffic report from mother natures own traffic copter?
I hear the high pitched drone of the crickets somewhere behind my head, and a crow caws.
I notice another sound that I almost had not realized, the sound of the traffic buzzing by below on route 14. A car honks its horn, distant but not so that it can't be heard.
A big breeze comes by and a few more acorns fall. Probably a good time to move on, before I get wacked in the head.
I head back down the trail, and toward the stone stairway, same way that I'd come by.
Down, down down, turn right.
Oh, there's a kit kat wrapper! I pick it up and continue.
Down down down, turn left,
down down down, turn left, and stop at the bottom where the trash can is, still slightly opened, my hint obviously missed by the kitkat eater, and I put the wrapper in there. An elderly couple is dicussing the probable taxonomy of a yellow weed flower. It is a buttery yellow with three petals. I don't catch what they identify it as.
I cross the bridge, and descend back through the tunnel, and emerge again, into the tarred parking lot, where another group of Japanese tourists ready their cameras and close up the trunk of their Subaru, about to start their hike. I get to the road, and cross Route 14, just before a truck full of port-a-potties passes. Signs on the stores advertise, Antiques!, Souveniers!, and NASCAR Souveniers!. I cross the parking lot of Mr. Chicken, the chicken outlined in blinking neon, and see smoke pouring forth from the stack of the Burger King down the street. I take the sidewalk down a side street, passing a long haired grey and white cat, stretched out across the walkway, with one paw extended into the middle of the walk.
He looks qite content, and doesn't move a muscle, or even lift his eyes to check me out.
A little further down, children have been at work with sidewalk chalk. "Karen hearts Lisa", in one colour, and in a different colour, "Rachel does too"! I turn the corner, walk a few more blocks, to the library. Another piece of trash. I pick it up, and on my way into the library, I tuck it into the waiting can. I come in and glance at the clock. 11:30. I tell Katherine that I'll take computer number three, giving her my library card, and then sit down, adjust my glasses, and begin to type.
