Friday December 05, 2008

Dave Bonta December 5, 2008

Juncos gather on the gravel driveway, replenishing their gizzards with grit. Up and down the big maple, it’s squirrel kabuki, love and war.

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Yet another clear, cool day. A goldfinch sings, almost through his molt. Even the builders' power saw sounds autumnal. …

Like hair on a head the way the stiltgrass falls about in orderly whorls. A raven flies over, hoarse cries out of sync with its wingbeats. …

A monarch butterfly en route to Mexico glides over the house, past the orange leaves on the last living branch of a hollow maple. …

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. …

Even unseen, the raven crying rawk rawk from high overhead makes the flat white sky more interesting. In the yard, a monarch's regal orange. …

A faint smell of sewage on the wind. A wren singing from atop the springhouse in the absence of a female supplies his own call-and-response. …

Goldfinch, nuthatch, catbird, wren. The herb-garden chipmunk, cheeks bulging, pauses on top of the wall to groom its paws. …

A dozen vultures fresh from their communal roost circle low overhead, wings shining white whenever they tilt toward the sun—angels of death. …

A meadow vole takes an after-death journey into the forest in the jaws of a cat, who holds her head high for once and does not slink. …

A succession of anxious or querulous calls—nuthatch, crow, Cooper's hawk, pileated woodpecker—until sunrise reddens the western ridge. …

Clear and cold. I follow my breath as it drifts over the ridges and valleys of the tin roof sheltering the oil tanks. A patter of acorns. …

Gold is spreading from the goldenrod up into the trees, here and there: walnut, elm, birch. A jay dives into the lilac: blue from the sky. …

The Morning Porch/Patio