In a light rain, on the rocky end of the beach, at the water edge, the oldest goslings, along with their parents, feed on the algae found on the old pilings. To the right, the youngest goslings feed among the rocks on the shore, watched over by their parents. One of the little goslings, while searching for delectable morsels, strays too close to the group of older goslings. Too late its father issues warning honks; the small creature is in the midst of the much larger offspring. Three of the older goslings catch the younger one in the water, surrounding it, and biting at its neck, as its agitated parents engage in threat displays directed at the other family group. The gosling struggling in the water makes a difficult target for the bigger goslings, so their attacks and their mother’s occasional bite do no serious damage, and it manages to scramble up between two rocks to hunker down. Fatigued by the assaults the small creature lies still, the assailants lose interest, and then they swim away. As its father continues to summon it with honks, the gosling rouses itself, and labors over the rocks in its path, as it endeavors to reach its family.
At the very same time, the behavior of the four safe goslings becomes decidedly peculiar. Each of the cute, cuddly, bundles of fluff that often pile up together to snuggle, begins nipping at the others’ necks in a harmless but wild melee. At one point, as three come together, the first bites at the neck of the second, the seconds bites the third, and the third the first, in imitation of what they must have witnessed minutes before.
The mad parody ends when the victimized gosling, having surmounted an obstacle or two, arrives to reunite with its siblings and parents. Making up for lost time and expended energy, everyone immediately starts gobbling anything within reach that is edible.
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New Year's day
January 1, 2002
New Year's day. It is a morning of dazzling sunlight that reduces the cloudless sky to a pastel blue from skyline to skyline and from the Narrows bridge to the Palisades. Blustery west-northwest winds convey bitter blasts of 18-degree cold diagonally across the river, driving before them obliquely rows of foot-high swells that slam into the river wall and rebound at right angles. The energy of the ricocheting waves, colliding with those incoming, atomizes water, turning it into the foamy whitecaps. The open river is a spectacle of royal blue wave troughs surrounded by crests of crystalline celadon crowned with glimmering froth.
In the pile field, the columns interrupt the patterns of the swells, so that the power of wave action is muted. As the river sloshes against the pilings, the splashed water freezes into collars of glistening ice on the few taller posts, dividing the dry, beige sections above from the wet, brown portions below. On the scores of shorter posts with tops just breaking the water surface, the frozen river spray forms sparkling caps of milky white, adorned with green centers, where the algae on the pilings shows through transparent ice.
As I prepare to leave from where I view the river, the pedestrian bridge that arcs out over the Hudson, a sudden wind gust, paralleling the vertical grill-work of the railing, sets the metal to vibrating, causing the bridge to emit a single loud ringing sound that I take as a note of farewell. And then I hurry to find shelter and warmth from the cold and the wind.
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New Year's Day
January 1, 2002
01/01/09
New Year's day. It is a morning of dazzling sunlight that reduces the cloudless sky to a pastel blue from skyline to skyline and from the Narrows bridge to the Palisades. Blustery west-northwest winds convey bitter blasts of 18-degree cold diagonally across the river, driving before them obliquely rows of foot-high swells that slam into the river wall and rebound at right angles. The energy of the ricocheting waves, colliding with those incoming, atomizes water, turning it into the foamy whitecaps. The open river is a spectacle of royal blue wave troughs surrounded by crests of crystalline celadon crowned with glimmering froth.
In the pile field, the columns interrupt the patterns of the swells, so that the power of wave action is muted. As the river sloshes against the pilings, the splashed water freezes into collars of glistening ice on the few taller posts, dividing the dry, beige sections above from the wet, brown portions below. On the scores of shorter posts with tops just breaking the water surface, the frozen river spray forms sparkling caps of milky white, adorned with green centers, where the algae on the pilings shows through transparent ice.
As I prepare to leave from where I view the river, the pedestrian bridge that arcs out over the Hudson, a sudden wind gust, paralleling the vertical grill-work of the railing, sets the metal to vibrating, causing the bridge to emit a single loud ringing sound that I take as a note of farewell. And then I hurry to find shelter and warmth from the cold and the wind.
Posted at: 01:00 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
New Year's day
January 1, 2002
New Year's day. It is a morning of dazzling sunlight that reduces the cloudless sky to a pastel blue from skyline to skyline and from the Narrows bridge to the Palisades. Blustery west-northwest winds convey bitter blasts of 18-degree cold diagonally across the river, driving before them obliquely rows of foot-high swells that slam into the river wall and rebound at right angles. The energy of the ricocheting waves, colliding with those incoming, atomizes water, turning it into the foamy whitecaps. The open river is a spectacle of royal blue wave troughs surrounded by crests of crystalline celadon crowned with glimmering froth.
In the pile field, the columns interrupt the patterns of the swells, so that the power of wave action is muted. As the river sloshes against the pilings, the splashed water freezes into collars of glistening ice on the few taller posts, dividing the dry, beige sections above from the wet, brown portions below. On the scores of shorter posts with tops just breaking the water surface, the frozen river spray forms sparkling caps of milky white, adorned with green centers, where the algae on the pilings shows through transparent ice.
As I prepare to leave from where I view the river, the pedestrian bridge that arcs out over the Hudson, a sudden wind gust, paralleling the vertical grill-work of the railing, sets the metal to vibrating, causing the bridge to emit a single loud ringing sound that I take as a note of farewell. And then I hurry to find shelter and warmth from the cold and the wind.
Posted at: 01:00 AM | 0 Comments | Add Comment | Permalink
