Thursday June 05, 2008

Dave Bonta June 5, 2008

A hummingbird lands on the upturned tip of a dead elm branch; the branch doesn’t move a hair. The first open peony lies on its side.

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With each breeze, a shower of yellow leaves. Now and then a whole walnut leaf—spine and rib bones sinking together in this sea of air. …

Cold and damp. The distant rumble of the heating oil truck's diesel engine coming up the hollow. Voices of crows. Voices of children. …

‪The air's so clear I can see gnats 100 feet away—bright motes wandering among the trees. Dead leaves crowd together at the end of the porch. …

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. …

As leaves begin to flutter in the rain, I notice the small birds fluttering underneath them, like a flash mob that was there all along. …

A high-speed chase through the yard—one Cooper's hawk tailing another. Woodpecker pandemonium. High above, a jet leaves two blank lines. …

All the stiltgrass has turned burgundy—"the wine-dark yard." In the woods, a steady procession of falling birch leaves. …

With the walnut leaves down, I can once again see the line of aspens: still green, still full of ambiguous gestures. (Hello? Get lost?) …

The lowering sky lightens a little when the rain finally starts. Yellow leaves flutter down from the walnut tree like exhausted moths. …

How does the poison ivy know to turn the same salmon as the red maple it has infiltrated? A phoebe chases a kinglet from the roadside weeds. …

Brief shower from a blue sky; a rumble of thunder. Goldenrod by the woods' edge is turning yellow for the second time with fallen leaves. …

Steady rain. Two squirrels passing each other on the driveway circle briefly, as if on an invisible roundabout. A towhee's mindless chant. …

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