We walked the retaining pond yesterday afternoon, beaver-felled trees lying by the edge of the water, the margins of the mulch path thick with mud. It had snowed the previous night into the morning, enough for the neighborhood boys to gather their sleds and trudge up the hill beyond our street, but now, as the sun tipped down toward the drumlins' ridge, the world was filled with light. The reeds beside the water had an almost grasping quality to them, their glow somehow barely moored to the dark, freezing earth. Later as we stood in the park across the road, the sky to the east was filled with the low grey clouds of lake-effect snow.
Suddenly a flock of mallards lifted from the water. As they banked to turn, their pale bellies caught the last of the evening light and gleamed before they turned away.
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