Thursday May 15, 2008

Dave Bonta May 15, 2008

Cloudy and cool. A tanager’s plucked string; no glimpse of scarlet. Where are they off to, the hummingbirds that keep zooming past my porch?

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A jet roars overhead en route to Heathrow. The rattling call of a magpie. An American gray squirrel lopes along the top of the back wall. …

The warmest morning in weeks. The bracken in my yard that the deer mowed down has raised defiant fists. A red-eyed vireo drones on and on. …

Cold and windy. Maple seeds spin down from the overcast sky, as if some psychotic cherub were plucking the wings from chitinous angels. …

A Juvenal's duskywing butterfly comes dancing out of the woods like a small brown leaf. Zigzag ripple in the grass where a chipmunk forages. …

Six nuthatches—parents and fledglings—scour the trees from top to bottom, soft calls communicating who knows what instructive tidbits. …

Each glaucous leaf of the bleeding-heart has rolled its rain into one fat bead. I'm wondering: where have all the wood thrushes gone? …

So clear, even the mourning dove sounds joyful. Muffled thuds of a pileated in a dead tree, knocking—as Rumi would say—from the inside. …

A new birdsong at sunrise: "Pleased pleased pleased to MEETcha!" Likewise, I mutter, trying to place the name. Ah—chestnut-sided warbler. …

A gray squirrel seems to be in heat: as in January, the slow-motion chases, the soft scold-calls, but now mostly hidden by the leaves. …

The Morning Porch/Patio