The Pond

 

     Before subdivisions and fences, a mall and acres of pavement, there were fields and wild raspberries, the greying trunks of old apple trees (all that was left of an old orchard) and the Pond. To us, when we were kids, the Pond seemed like it was a half-day trek away. In the distance, we could see the trees surrounding it from the end of the back yard. It was like a beckoning oasis.

     Once we were committed to making the journey, we would set off along the fencelines towards the Pond. We had to be wary of the farmer, who did not like us stepping on his plants or knocking over his corn. The field was rutted and rough; there were fences to climb, barbed wire and raspberry bushes to dodge.  The sun was hot overhead. We plodded onward. Slowly, the circle of trees came closer and closer. Our house was lost somewhere behind us. It was a strange feeling.

We came up on the Pond alongside the fallen tree, which was home base. This was where we would drop our stuff–mostly mine…snacks,plastic container for captures, notebook, pen, drawing pad. The water lay placid and calm, spreading out around the tree trunks–so clear, you could see the layers of fallen leaves on the bottom of the Pond, and the black minnows darting and flickering. The previous generation had left an old raft, roughly constructed and very tippy. The boys found a long branch and waded in, hoisted themselves aboard. They used the stick to navigate around the circumference of the Pond.  I went on a few times, but I was more content to sit on the dead tree, writing nature  poems and trying to sketch trees. Tiring of that eventually, I perched at the Pond’s edge with the plastic container I’d brought along and waited for minnows to shimmy past. I had a little watermelon patch at the edge of my back yard, my own little piece of earth where I made my hills for the watermelons, planted tree seedlings and stuck tin cans into the dirt which I filled with Pond water and minnows. It was my own attempt at a fish pond.

The trees towered above, and the others drifted past on the raft. I munched crackers and wished I’d brought a drink. We measured time by the slant of the sun through the branches overhead. When the uneasiness of being so far from home became overwhelming, we packed up and headed home.

When plans were announced to build the mall, we worried for the Pond, even though we had outgrown it. As the excavation began, hoses and machines were brought in, and all the water was pumped out of the Pond. Some how, some of the towering trees were saved. They are still there, part of the yard of a new church that was build there, on the edge of the new subdivision. Instead of still waters, the trees are surrounded by manicured green lawns. No one would ever imagine silvery water and frog song and kids on rafts. I can still see us there. I can still hear the distant song of frogs coming through my open bedroom window in the middle of the night, knowing where the music was coming from….across the field, over the fences, through the tall trees in the moonlight.

The watermelon patch is long gone–but one of my tree saplings is a massive maple now, providing shade for a newer house, its lot severed from my parents’ yard many years ago. Nothing is left of the remnants of the old orchard or the fields and toppling fences, the tangle of wild raspberries. All is lost in new streets and houses built close together, in parking lots and street lights. And yet… I walk past those remaining trees where the Pond used to stand, and I somehow feel myself remembered in them.