Saturday June 20, 2009

Dave Bonta June 20, 2009

A hummingbird grooms itself in the middle of a downpour while a phoebe plucks insects from the side of the dead elm, hovering in place.

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Bright sun illuminates the fading elder leaves, bejewels the rain-soaked grass, polishes the fresh dog turd. …

Rain again. This is the dreariest, drabbest autumn I've ever seen—except for the moss and tree-bark lichens, which have never been brighter. …

From under a hat brim ablaze with sun, I gaze out at the stiltgrass glazed with frost. Jays in the treetops. Falling acorns tick and tock. …

Goldfinches repopulate a leafless birch and sit eating seeds. From the east, the sound of the quarry's crusher, its breakfast of stones. …

With the leaves half down, I can see inside the forest again: squirrels leaping from branch to branch, a ridgetop flock, the rising sun. …

A ragged flock of geese too low for the alembic of distance to mellow their calls. But I hear each wingbeat, see the sun on their feathers. …

Fourth-quarter moon in the branches of the black walnut, facing back toward the east and the first stain of dawn. …

A walnut sits on the railing in its soggy, rotten husk like an obscene offering. Two distant fire sirens: when one peaks, the other troughs. …

Deer circle the wild pear tree behind the house, rising high on their hind legs to reach the fruit. A crow jeers from a nearby walnut limb. …

An hour before dawn, a high thin cloud drifts northeast to the rumble of a freight train. When the half-moon intersects, a rainbow disc. …

A yellow barberry bush at the edge of the woods trembles violently: two deer are stripping the fruit from its thorny branches. …

The oaks are finally coloring up, and rattle instead of rustling in the wind. But no rain of acorns this autumn, few footfalls of deer. …

The Morning Porch/Patio