For a supposedly peaceful island, it sure is noisy here.
Gazebo Island has many visitors, each contributing their own sights and sounds to the landscape. Runners’ feet thump against the wood of the bridges; children and their parents chatter in the gazebo; geese and ducks squabble over the bread crumbs tossed to entice them closer; a lone, ever-patient boy swings his lure into the lake with a plop, although I can’t imagine many fish will be near to take the bait.
Then there are the multitudes of color, from light green to dark green; yellow bursting through the gaps in leaves; the reddish brown of the pine needles. And perhaps the most disheartening color I’ve seen in a while; the murky green-brown of the lake itself. From the far side of the lake it appears as if a giant had made a mirror for the sky, but up close there is a far different tale to be told. Filled with waste matter from runoff, goose poop, and algae, the lake is not a pleasant sight up close. How much of anything can live in such slow-moving and turgid water has always surprised me. Yet, life goes on for the lake residents; sliders slide, geese attack the innocent, and the occasional fish bubble meanders to the surface. Now that is a small miracle.
Humans have always considered ourselves the great adapters of the world, but perhaps a better word would be conquerors. In Western culture, at least, we don’t change our habits to each new place we encounter, instead we change the place to suit our habits. In contrast stand the species that managed to survive our more or less hostile take over. The most famous, or infamous, may be the raccoon; rummaging through garbage with ease and terrifying cats galore. But the ones who have likely encountered some of the hardest going have been the water creatures. In almost every metropolitan area there is a polluted river; beyond drinking and general cleanliness standards, interrupted by dams up and down and ripped of riparian zones. But not a single one is unoccupied. Herons still fish, frogs still croak and fish still swim. And that small miracle of adaption is demonstrated in a small scale by Westhampton Lake. It’s easy to see and hear, if you look in the right direction.
It is sad but true that we conquer instead of adapting to our land. It has only been in recent history during the refocusing on the Earth that we’ve begun to see how that hasn’t been going well for us. However, it is heartening to see how the land can overtake sometimes. While hundreds of people dying in Jamestown is nothing but sad, it goes to show how sometime we do have to adapt. If you look at current pictures of abandoned towns or cities such as Chernobyl, you can see how in very short periods of time, nature reclaims everything, wiping away the marks of humans. I like to think that one day humans will be gone, and nature will own every inch of the Earth once again. Like it’s washing away our sins.
Great opening sentence!
There is actually a surprising population of fish. Enough to give some hope to your young fisherman in any case. I like how the essay introduces the concept of the miracle of life and returns to it at the end. There is a nice, logical flow to the essay. It reads like a long Intro, which is fine for this short piece. With your synthesis essay, try to introduce the central thesis statement a bit earlier in the piece (e.g., end of the first paragraph). Then you will have more time to develop and support the statement with links to examples elsewhere and by others as well as well as your own new and developing insights. The writing in this entry is generally very strong. One small piece of advice is to be careful with the railroading of many sentences together using semicolons. This can be an effective an interesting style. Just be sure to choose the locations for it judiciously. I am looking forward to reading more about your time spent on the Gazebo Island.