Journal of a Sabbatical

June 11, 2000

warren underwater

Today's Bird Sightings:
Watchemoket Cove
ring-billed gulls (69)
herring gulls (20)
Canada geese (47)
mute swans (39)
mallards (9)
double crested cormorant (2)
snowy egret (6)
common tern (2)
great egret (4)
redwinged blackbird (1)
house sparrows (2)
starlings (2)

Today's Reading: Summer: From the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau edited by H.G.O. Blake,
The Birds of Brewery Creek by Malcolm MacDonald

Today's Starting Pitcher:
Ramón Martinez

After breakfast at Downcity and counting the birds at the cove, I had this bright idea to go to Colt State Park even though the weather is marginal. We decide to stop at that little strip mall in Barrington that has a Starbucks and the Little Professor bookstore (which has the best selection of music magazines). It's hot out. We crave cold beverages. These are obtained at Starbucks.

While we're in the bookstore browsing and deciding to buy Butterflies Through Binoculars and Historic and Architectural Resources of the East Side, Providence, a thunderclap louder than a cannon blast sounds overhead with a simulataneous flash of lightning followed by the deluge. A lot of water comes down all at once. Like the sky dumped a giant bucket on our collective heads.

Weirdly, I persist in my desire to keep driving south to Bristol. It's smooth going in Barrington, but as soon as we hit Warren it's what's with all this traffic? Is this the Warren Quahog festival or something? Nope. Right by the Samsonite factory the road is flooded. It looks like the entire giant rain bucket landed in that one spot. Do I turn around? Nope. I wait my turn to drive slowly through the flood hoping it won't drown any parts of my car but might rinse the Plum Island dust off the undercarriage. Colt State Park is practically empty by the time we get there but it's nice looking out over the bay.

Today's Thoreau secret decoder ring entry is a metaphoric phrase from one of yesterday's entries that I just couldn't figure out:

dark eyelash of summer

Turns out it's a quote from a poem that appears in the Sunday chapter of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers :

        It was a summer eve, 
        The air did gently heave 
        While yet a low-hung cloud 
        Thy eastern skies did shroud; 
        The lightning's silent gleam, 
        Startling my drowsy dream, 
        Seemed like the flash 
        Under thy dark eyelash. 

However, it's not clear to me from the text whether he is quoting "the poet" he mentions in the preceding paragraph or this is his own poem. In any case, the reference to "dark eyelash" in the poem makes a lot more sense than "It reminds me of the thundercloud and the dark eyelash of summer" referring to the shade of the dark green leaves.