Coldest morning of the month so far. I notice that each limb of the dead cherry is growing a shaggy coat of turkey-tail fungus.
September 2011
9/15/2011
Watching night turn to day—a thing that should be gradual, but instead proceeds by small leaps of realization: “It’s lighter now!” Rain.
9/14/2011
Many of the asters that shut their purple lashes for the night have yet to open, frustrating a honeybee. A squat native bee pushes right in.
9/13/2011
As so often in fall, a clear morning sky means not clarity but inversion—the bellowing of trucks. A yellow leaf lands with a soft click.
9/12/2011
No matter how late I rise, the light still has that early-morning look—as today at 9:00, pooling golden at the entrance to the woods.
9/11/2011
How to describe a monarch butterfly’s flight? Too straight for “flutter,” too erratic for “soar.” And this one—why is it heading north?
9/10/2011
Days of rain, and the stream is only a gurgle. Even as the sky clears, in the woods the rain is still making its slow way to the ground.
9/9/2011
A mottle-winged moth flops like a fish across the floor. A mosquito tries to drill through denim, her hind-most legs like levers going up.
9/8/2011
Gauzy curtains of rain blow back and forth. A yellowish warbler darts through the lilac, harrying the dull-colored residents.
9/7/2011
A hummingbird hovers over the red porch floor made glossy by wind-blown rain. A catbird on a dead limb tilts its head to eye the clouds.
9/6/2011
The sound of rain as it thins to a whisper or thickens into heavy traffic: on the roof, on grass, on tree leaves toughened by a long summer.
9/5/2011
Rain and fog. With the power out, the world looms frighteningly close. Off in the woods, a bright clearing where some tree came down.
9/4/2011
The first two Asian stinkbugs stalk the porch posts and railings. I wave a foot at one of them and it drops to the floor with a dull thwack.
9/3/2011
A hummingbird buzzes into the garden, and I follow her bill to the last bergamot flower’s four thin flagons. A truck clatters past.