First Sunset of Autumn 2010

 

Thursday, September 23rd, Crescent Lake is quiet.  Serene.  The echos of summer just passed still reverberate across the lake from Gove Hill south to Silver Beach and east to Shorewood Estates.  The sun sets at 6:40pm, a clear sky with high clouds.  It will be Spring before we see sunset at this hour again.

 

The lake tonight is perfectly still.  A mirror-image of the shoreline above it.  A few less boats and docks remain, those belonging to the year-round residents and hearty souls who profess to remove them before “the cold weather sets in.”  It’s cool tonight.  Sixty-degrees versus the hot days and nights of July and August.  Autumn here is stereo-typical – the sugar maples begin to change their colors quickly, and blue jays rival the ducks for audio supremacy.  The only “remote” sound is an Air Force C130 literally tied to a C5A Galaxy in a mid-air refueling operation at 12,000 feet.  They make a few passes over Crescent Lake before the sun leaves them without enough light to continue.

 

The lake is in hiatus.  Perhaps recharging its “batteries” for the coming cold season.  Preparing for the winter freeze, which always seems far too long.  Soon the sound of power boats will be replaced by snow mobiles, kayaks replaced by cross-country skiers. 

 

The setting sun on this first night of Autumn begs to grab the six-string and bang out a few crude chords in homage.  Sounds of James Taylor’s “Country Road” fill this small vantage point pointing west across Vermont’s Greens and the rust-colored setting sun.   Tonight, a full moon and planet Jupiter will light up the sky – perhaps a reminder that we are all intricately linked somehow in a celestial dance.  This slow dance will eventually take us into Spring 2011 when the trees again fill with green and the lake begins its seasonal rebirth, once again to play host to those of us who call Crescent Lake our “home”.

 

Thursday, September 23rd.  Crescent Lake is quiet.  Serene. 

 

All is good.

 


 

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          A Delicate Topic  by Clark Moore