I am usually the fish out of water

but not today.

Discarded Prize

Two days ago, when I last saw Oscar, an enthusiastic black dog (my favorite of the regular Lake Cheston canines), he carried an empty fish, all husk without organs and flesh, like an Olympian champion might his country's flag: so proud, so joyous, Oscar running to catch up with his human in a victory lap.

Today, almost three-fourths of the way around the lake on the opposite side, I caught the fish out of the corner of my eye, stopped and studied its serried scales, mottled blue and cream in dull light and embedded with sand grains, and saw beauty even in defeat.

Sky Fish

Creating a book for the Trails and Trillium H2O show, I have been re-reading parts of Walden, searching for quotations that complement the pictures I have selected for the book.

Thoreau wrote "Sky water, It needs no fence," and the early spring sun and pond and fish and trees listened.

How can I mind a gray day when I see what he did: "the bare face of the pond full of glee and youth, as if it spoke the joy of the fishes within it"?