Clapp's Pond

Three miles through the woods Clapp's Pond sprawls stone gray among oaks and pines, the late winter fields where a pheasant blazes up lifting his yellow legs under bronze feathers, opening bronze wings; and one doe, dimpling the ground as she touches its dampness sharply, flares out of the brush and gallops away. * By evening: rain. It pours down from the black clouds, lashes over the roof. The last acorns spray over the porch; I toss one, then two more logs on the fire. * How sometimes everything closes up, a painted fan, landscapes and moments flowing together until the sense of distance - - - say, between Clapp's Pond and me - - - vanishes, edges slide together like the feathers of a wing, everything touches everything. * Later, lying half-asleep under the blankets, I watch while the doe, glittering with rain, steps under the wet slabs of the pines, stretches her long neck down to drink * from the pond three miles away.