The waters are of a brown-green due to clay setiments and pollution left by boats and the stagnating heat of leftover Summer. Wasps and bees linger over the stagnation and flower of bindweed, wild rose, iris, clover, and aster. These can be seen along the lakes creating a natural edging that leaves all artificial in the dark.
The bee climbs into the purple-white flower of a bindweed with inborn agility on high noon. The wasp don't mind overcasted skies as their black lucid bodies doze in a hundred unnamed green shurbs. These same shrubs are falling beneath the stranglehold of parasitic dodder, which looks like bright red spaghetti, and will feed off other plants until late Fall.
A million groundcoveres rush to fill nature's void that it so disdains: bare soil. Purslane, mallow, plantain, grass, and occasional sweet mint. The mallow has pretty enough leaves unto itself while plantain is a feast for all wildlife including the two leg species. These ground covers last the whole season until after the leaves have all turned.
I've never fished in these waters, only swam before. The most common amphibians by far are carp, catfish, frogs, and those tiny silver-grey fish.
Just as the sun comes out the water is shown green, the green mass edging around the water contains specks of blue, white, and purple, and the little unamed insects like beetles and spiders that depend on the vegetation for food. On a cloudy day the world slows down in seeming greyness though I know it same whether its noon or cloudy. Maybe it only seems the same.
A small butterfly has brown-grey wings covered in almost decorative orange, black, and tan markings with another color perfectly surrounding them. It seems to be almost gazing out across the waters on the same old concrete slab I am. A huge wave came up the rock and splattered me and scared the butterfly away. Damn boats. A leaf of cottonwood turned yellow is now resting on the rock. A common tree in exchange for the sight of a mottled brown butterfly.
Like all life on this blue and green globe the butterfly exists in an increasingly unpredictable climate both weather wise and socially. Climate change has become the most serious issue in my lifetime alone along with peak oil, soil loss, deforestation, and ocean acidification. The butterfly hesitated too long on the rock after the wave almost swept it away. All around and even right in front of me the planet as we knew it nearly half century ago when the Industrial age really took off is dying. Metaphorically, humans are going on decline with it. This time I was able to move off of the rock as well as the butterfly, but someday that may no longer be possible. Already, it seems irreversible.
It was only few decades ago when the first scietnific evidence emerged that too much carbon dioxide was getting trapped in the atmosphere and causing polar ice caps to melt thus heating up entire Earth. I remember first hearing about climate change as a very young kid. My parents were always enviromentally-inclined and kept up with the latest related news. There were pictures in the National Geographic showing the Polar region in early 19th century covered in ice and another beside it almost bare 60 years later. It was a poigant picture that left an impression in my young mind at the time. All that vast, open icy landscape was the thing of my wild fantasies yet it was being threatened by human-induced climate change.
As I got older, I saw firsthand and on the news the mounting damage and destabilization caused by too many greenhouse gases being released by burnt fossil fuels. The midwest Summer became hotter than usual while severe water shortages and natural disasters could be seen in the news. Hurricanes off the coast of Florida became more frequent and hurricane katrina nearly sunk New Orleans city. Tornadoes ravaged South and North was meant with severe storms that caused bilions in damage.
Spring came sooner to parks, lake, and my garden alike. Though it spent so long raining in May it wasn't until early Summer that I could get anything out. The herbs and vegetables would do fine many years, but the flowers would be ruined by a surprise hail storm. The hail was always the worst.
I can see across the lake as the sun bounces off water again. Its coming down through the atmosphere to light up this small area on the planet. The area where I'm sitting. The cottonwood leaf is still resting on the same rock I am. It seems almost resigned. Perhaps I am too. Humans often know the troubles in the world, but still we lay like leaves complacently on a rock. The rock seems unbreakable. I know another severe storm could send it to bottom of lake or buried under fallen tree. But we seek to hide these facts. Perhaps we wish we were no more than leaves falling from the trees above. We do not transcend so easily whether it be nature or socially.