The sky begins to clear by late morning. I get up from my reading about the extinction of rare frogs and go out again to shiver in the sun.
September 2009
9/29/2009
Under a white sky, the trees rock and sway, showing the pale undersides of their leaves—a palms-up gesture of welcome or helplessness.
9/28/2009
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.
9/27/2009
Two gray squirrels in their fall colors—snouts and bellies stained brown from walnut hulls—dash past each other on the rain-slick trunk.
9/26/2009
Overcast and cool with jays, jays, jays. A red-tailed hawk’s pale breast flashing through the leaves, the sound of wingtips clipping limbs.
9/25/2009
All the small birds converge on a birch tree to scold some hidden thing. It never stirs. They drift away. Sunlight settles on the leaves.
9/24/2009
Pieces of walnut husk plop onto the driveway. A yellow leaf trapped by caterpillar silk flops like a fish a foot above the fishless stream.
9/23/2009
At first light, the soft wickering of migrant wood thrushes. A deer snorts three times, and suddenly I’m seeing a bear in every shadow.
9/22/2009
Blue jays in the rain, less blue than gray, converge on an oak one tree in from the edge, tails like hands spread for a throw of dice.
9/21/2009
I dream of giant salamanders and wake to a pair of red-tailed hawks on the tree limb closest to the porch, heads pivoting like gun turrets.
9/20/2009
The door under the porch is ajar, as if a bear or burglar had been there. Strangled cries from overhead: a crow diving at a slow hawk.
9/19/2009
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.
9/18/2009
One of the autumn grasses beloved of Basho blooms an alien red at the edge of the yard. Sudden jumbled music from a V of non-migrant geese.
9/17/2009
Some small hawk has been calling since first light, hidden in the treetops: soft brief cries, soon joined by a chorus of its enemies.