HERE AT EAGLE POND By Donald Hall Nonfiction Ticknor & Fields $19.95
Late spring and early summer, the whip-poor-will wakes us at four-thirty. Gray light starts over the hills; thrushes sing from every branch; clouds snag like lamb's wool on blue Mount Kearsarge. Down by Eagle Pond, just west of us, pickerel leap for blackflies and when they splat on the still water wake frogs and turtles. It is a good hour for waking; we keep the green universe alone. But late September is the most beautiful time, and early October, when it is dangerous to drive because you must not look at the road. Sugar maples flare a Chinese red; they combine with yellow birch leaves, russet oak, and evergreen to weave a wild tweed on hills in the middle distance.
