THE WETLAND POND The wetland pond is shrinking. Dark-chocolate cattails and summer-green milkweed pods burst into the white cotton balls they always do when autumn comes, a cotton field of wisps and puffs that match the color of my hair. The sumacs are changing into the red dress they always wear this time of year, a royal crimson robe, glistening in the morning sun before frost and snow turn their fleeting autumn puffs from regal red to winter white. I see no yellow on the wetland pond beside this dirt road that has no name or dot on anyone’s map. The yellow lilies on the lily-pads have gone to sleep to greet the Spring again if the pond is still here. --GCS, September morning walk September 27, 2021.
O LORD, what are we that You should care for us?
mere mortals that You should think of us?
We are like a puff of wind;
our days are like a passing shadow.
Do not cast me off in my old age.
(Psalm 144:3,4; 71:9 BCP)
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Views from the Edge 
Fall sounds beautiful there. ❤
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It’s getting there, Nancy, and the breezes are already brisk. Wish I could send some to Arizona!
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Exquisite!
Prayers that the pond survives.
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Indeed, and that public perception will expand when the narratives that deny climate change and human species exceptionalism are seduced (Kierkegaard) to change the narratives.
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I felt my heart crack as I watched my favorite ancient silver maple cut to pieces yesterday – a victim of drought and pollution. The gifts of beauty that we have so undeservedly been given are lost every day.
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I know the cracked feeling. We moved from Minnetonka after a development company clear cut all but a 200 year old oak. The roots of the tree had been cut by the company leveling the ground. Assurances from the Minnetonka City Council to neighborhood residents were ignored. It was Monday afternoon when I first laid eyes on it. A 90+ year old woman who lived in a shack on her three acres of forested property had sworn for decades she would never sell to a developer. When she vacated her home for a nursing home, her dear son sold it! I blew my stack at the city council meeting, but the damage could not be repaired.
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