Even though I am privileged to gaze out at such beauty every day I can’t help but be reminded of the struggle and fragility of life. Every day now I encounter the mallard mother and her three off-spring… I the schooling alewives coming into the fullness of their lives… I watch the musk rat gather grass for her young. They all stay close together now. There are snapping turtles and eels, pickerel, perch, and bass, water snakes, snapping turtles, heron, king fishers, osprey, and cormorants, among so many others, to contend with. Life feeds life.

I found myself saying to the mallard yesterday- stay together as long as you can– and that surprised me, coming as it did from some place of vulnerabilty within. Meanwhile, I sit within what Henry Miller has called our American “air-conditioned nightmare” for which I am quite grateful.