Hydra's Head
The Seneca Indians of New York have a saying: “Pools of water are the eyes of the earth.” At night the pools of Hydra’s Head “see” the stars brought down into their circumferences, by day they catch in their “view” sky, clouds, sun, and a bird or two. The moon is seen moving from pool to pool as I walk—a continuous recurrence of light encircled. Eddies and whirlpools in the river below, fed by the mad waters of Niagara Falls seven miles upstream, keep up a loud rhythm— there’s always the sound of water. Hearing and seeing come together in a vaporous fusion. The sky has suddenly fallen and is circled at my feet. Clouds drift through the earth, the sun gleams off the windblown ripples. A bottomless hole is there to engulf me. A sinking feeling begins to pervade. Nature’s mirrors absorb. The color of the concrete pipe seen rimming the pools echoes in the color of the rocks nearby.
