Monday September 01, 2008

A cool, clear autumn morning. Every few minutes, another alarm call breaks the silence: pileated woodpecker. Bluejays. A frantic squirrel.

On this date

Tulip poplar leaves waving like four-fingered, cartoon hands. A shimmer of mizzle thickens into rain. The Carolina wrens go on dueting. …

Overcast, cool and quiet. The muffled crows of the neighbor's rooster, still inside the coop. A small, brown moth lands on my shoulder. …

A shimmer of rain. One of the lower branches on the big tulip tree has been stripped of bark, but its leaves haven't gotten the news. …

Power out, I spend the morning on the porch. A large, black assassin bug lands on the sunny side of a column and stalks up toward the roof. …

A netwing beetle flies past at eye-level, its orange-striped, eponymous elytra raised in a semaphor U. The muggy air thickens into rain. …

Just before dawn, the creak of a tree in the woods, and then in the yard. A bindweed in the garden aims its white blunderbuss at the moon. …

Up at 4:45 to watch the meteor shower, I carry a folding chair out onto the driveway and look up: nothing. Clouds. A raindrop hits my face. …

The Morning Porch