The Silence of the Axelsee

A round trip. Around the lake. At Meinbrexen or somewhere else.”Lets walk around the Axelsee”, she proposed. And already we were on the road to our destination: two former gravel pits transformed into a recreation area alongside the Weser near Würgassen.


One of them, the Anglersee ist small and silent, for fisher only. Nobody is there during this time of the year. But also in the summer - when we came to walk here - it was very quiet. Once we met an old Karlshafener. Lying in the grass near his bike drinking wine.


This summer I read a newspaper report: Old man drowned in Angler see while swimming. It must have been him. We never meet anymore in town. A warning sign. The deep gravel pit has a cold undercurrent.


To continue the peripateia  you have to cross the grounds of the Axelsee Camping. As it is off-season now, there is no impediment. Uncontrolled we walk around the dark lake. Far away two swans disappear behind the reed.


The weather is damp grey. Sometimes it rains lightly. Hardly anything remarkable to see on the waterfront. The river too is hidden behind riverside trees. Then you see the Mühlenberg forest and the high Hasselburg with the radio-mast. The sky is empty grey.


In the final turn at the far end of the lake we discover a hidden magical scene. A miracle of nature. A flooded forest with sunken bushes and trees. Like a Mangrove. The watertrees have grown extra waterroots. And there in between trunks a swan pair floating. Half invisible. I did not succeed in making a corresponding picture. Their heads remained under water or invisible. Never mind.

A magical surprise. Swans floating in a water-forest. Long after these amazing images keep floating through my mind and memory. On a rainy afternoon on a walk around the silent Axelsee. A gift.