Magic at Cedar Hollow Lake

Jill said, "There's another lake out there, past Farm Pond."

Google maps showed me the way.

And oh what a way: up a fire road through woods with wind, distant whirring of a tractor, sweat bees and butterfly beats my only companions, until the alley of trees gave way to an oval of green and reflected blue: Cedar Hollow Lake.

There, magic met me on the wings of two Eastern Pondhawks.  The male circled and landed at my feet, not once, but three times, not even moving as I stepped within six inches of him to move toward a fire pit.

On another bare rock, I spied a female, lay prostrate, and watched her flit from stone to flower to grass blade to bare earth, sunning herself and snagging breakfast in flight.  She ignored the male who tagged her again and again.  She had eyes only for me.

Even when I sat, stood up, turned to the bank facing the water, five feet away, and sat on a pillow of moss, she followed, alighting within arm's reach on straw and then performing several fly-bys, ruffling my hair.  Together, we spent an hour, she eating and sunning, I watching and wondering, while beyond the lake teemed with dragonflies snapping each other and the water's surface.

Thoreau called his pond the eye of heaven.  

I understand.  This is a heaven in which I believe.