A steady shimmer of rain. At the woods’ edge, the first fall fashions have arrived, two maples trading their faded green for salmon.
September 2016
9/29/2016
All-day rain. During a brief lull, a small, mixed flock of birds moves through the treetops like leaves flying upstream against the wind.
9/28/2016
Overcast with quarry noise out of the east. A lone Canada goose flies low over the trees, its voice breaking like a teenage boy’s.
9/27/2016
Sun shimmers in the treetops while rain still drips from the roof. A squirrel climbs a walnut tree carrying a walnut, as if in some proverb.
9/26/2016
The yellow is moving up from the goldenrod to the birches, tulip trees and elms. A red-bellied woodpecker’s shrill calls end in a trill.
9/25/2016
Clear and cold. A squirrel trots into the woods with the green globe of a walnut clenched in its teeth. The oleaginous burble of a wren.
9/24/2016
Breezy and cool. Three phoebes hawk for insects along the woods’ edge while a young pine or blackpoll warbler flits through the goldenrod.
9/23/2016
A dead hornet lies on her back beside my chair with her six legs folded neatly over her thorax. At the woods’ edge, a rain of yellow leaves.
9/22/2016
Clear and cold at sunrise. A migrant thrush calls from the not-yet-ruined temple of the trees. Overhead, the archaic smile of the moon.
9/21/2016
The asters in my garden are finally opening, purple and gold above new, green growth, the lower leaves all dead from the summer’s drought.
9/20/2016
The sun moves through the foggy woods like a spider at the center of her web. The hollow tocks of chipmunks up and down the hillside.
9/19/2016
A new bloom of gnats—I saw them swarming by the back door—and the yard is full of fall warblers, foraging with the chickadees and titmice.
9/18/2016
Too dark to identify the small birds darting through the forest canopy. A walnut dislodged by a squirrel thumps hard against the ground.
9/17/2016
The female hummingbird tries to get nectar out of my red iPad cover again, repeatedly probing the end of the fold, my fingers inches away.