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.
chipmunks
7/29/2016
Bright sun after last night’s long-awaited rain. A chipmunk races down the road with cheek pouches bulging. A wood pewee’s melancholy call.
7/27/2016
Two chipmunks in the woods locked in a rap battle fall in and out of sync. The chipmunk in the garden listens from atop the wall.
7/18/2016
Two chipmunks eating unripe drupes high in a black cherry tree suspend their usual hostilities. One jumps over the other when they meet.
7/2/2016
A chipmunk crouches atop the stone wall. In the strong sunlight I can see how nervous energy ripples through its fur from head to tail.
6/10/2016
Batting away a hornet hovering next to my legs—the softness of its wings. A chipmunk adds its metronome to the chorus of bird calls.
10/9/2015
The walnut tree next to the road is stripping in the wind, its leaves flying off in great yellow gusts. The steady ticking of a chipmunk.
9/24/2015
Another cloudless morning. Chipmunks chase each other through a bar of sunlight on the forest floor. The distant, metallic calls of a raven.
9/15/2015
Sunrise stains the treetops. The woods are full of anxious-sounding calls: chipmunks, jays, nuthatches, an endlessly scolding squirrel…
9/9/2015
Overcast and cool. Chipmunks begin ticking, one after the other, all over the hillside. Suddenly it’s raining. Suddenly it isn’t.
8/12/2015
Cloudy and cool. Cricket trills and ticks are joined by chipmunk tocks. A tulip tree leaf sails in wide circles with its stem for a rudder.
6/21/2015
The light between showers. A groundhog plows through the stiltgrass in the yard. Later, two chipmunks touch noses at the end of the porch.
6/14/2015
A chipmunk scurries through the garden with a wad of dried leaves between her teeth and disappears beneath a flowerless clump of peonies.
6/6/2015
A flash of blue as one indigo bunting chases another out of the yard. From within the rock wall, a chipmunk’s hollow tock.