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Underneath the granite cliffs of "High Ledges" there is a long, shoreless vernal pond.  Green mer-hair entwines the slow current, and within it the spring frogs make a raucous music.  They fall quiet and dive or float watchfully as we approach.  Purple claws of skunk cabbage glisten against the winter's dull leaf litter.  A fleck of that litter takes flight: a mourning cloak fluttering up into the blue shards of sky that seem to hold the leafless trees in their places.

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