Bacchanal
September 24. Driving home in the evening, I stop the car along Sideroad 20 not far from Guelph. It is an eerie night with insects whirring loudly in the moist woods and marshland alongside the road. Their final bacchanal has begun, a feast and swagger of life burning lustily until the crash of first frost. A hunchback moon lurks behind clouds, casting a diaspora of pale gloom across the sky.
September 29. I head out for a walk, but end up just standing by the pond, absorbing as much late afternoon sunshine as possible. The leaves have barely started to turn colour, but every detail is clearly reflected on the smooth surface. Several hundred whirligig beetles have formed a flotilla not far from the bank, but they are barely moving, as if in peaceful communion. These insects have the most efficient swimming legs in the animal kingdom, and their eyes are split in two, one half looking up and the other down into the water. Masses of green algae I saw on the bottom last week seem to have proliferated. Higher aquatic flora have increased this year, too. Upstream near Victoria Road bridge there are large clumps of sinuous, long-leafed plants. In the pond a clump of arrowheads appears where there were none last year. A woodpecker calls Pik! Pik! but otherwise the only sound is a background drone of insects.
