Renée Koma

Professor Kayser

Fly Fishing Literature

Journal Entry #1

January 20, 2022

The Edge of Kinsman Pond

Like Kinsman Pond itself, I’m trying to look mostly smooth on the surface. Lining the

edge of the water are boulders and trees, boulders and trees, and at the moment I’m so still that

I’m hoping all the other living somethings that might be watching me from the water’s edge will

forget that I walked here on my feet and sat down. I want to melt into it all like the twilight is

melting the line between the yellowed sky and the glassy water – boulders and trees, boulders

and trees.

I’ve walked here in dreams and I’ve set myself down at the edge under the arching slope

of South Kinsman’s peak. On the opposite shore, it rises up, up and away, like stairs to the

moon, and the pond surface studded with lily pads is the only indicator that the upside-down

world in the reflection is anything less than perfectly real.

It’s been a year since I sat here last, still dogged by the shadowy black hound, the one

that follows you around to let you know you haven’t healed just yet. I’d stared at my reflection

then, wondering just when I would be proud of what I saw, and comfortable in what was

beginning to feel like awfully tight skin. Only when you’ve walked here from Georgia, barked the

hound.

But now, at mile 1,815, the yawning and doleful sound of summer bullfrog song is

echoing off the slabbed wall of the mountain. The sun has long sunk and the sky is purpling and

so I unfold my swollen feet and my sore legs and I open my journal. In the indistinctness of

twilight, Jello tip toes to me through the boulders and trees, boulders and trees.
 “Yard Sale,” he begins, and then he sees me scribbling and he stops himself. I’ve trained

him well.

“I’ll leave you be, then,” he says, backing away. As he disappears into the dark,

however, he turns back around and gives me his two cents - “but don’t forget to eat dinner.” I flip

the page and clean up the dull words, circling here, crossing out there. I stare out onto the

fading water and recite it aloud to the bullfrogs.

Tucked between White Mountains

I am breathing slow and long

To pull peace down from Spruce branches

On the edge of Kinsman Pond.

Stripes of clouds on canvas sky

And bullfrog summer song,

I am holding close my loneliness

On the edge of Kinsman Pond.

The sky is choked dark blue, so I close my journal, and just once, before I can’t see

anymore, I lean forward to peer at my dirt-streaked reflection. For the first time in the months

and years that are stretching out across the pond, I see the curiosity and the peace return to my

own eyes. I’m at ease here on the edge, and as the very last traces of the sunlight recede, I

watch the outline of my reflection melt into the background behind me, nothing but boulders and

trees, boulders and trees.