Sunday August 29, 2010

As the plane fades in the distance, they return: a towhee, two lethargic vireos, a chipmunk’s water-drip-steady clucks, the garden cricket.

On this date

A mid-air tangle between a phoebe and a wood pewee ends with the latter calling once from a walnut branch and flying back into the woods. …

I move around to the shady side of the house. Different birds here: oriole high in a walnut tree, towhee tapping at the dining room window. …

From a garden across the way, the desolate barks of a dog locked outside. A breeze showers the table with firethorn blossoms. …

The delicate sneezes of a deer grazing on the thorny canes of multiflora rose bushes. She stretches a hind leg up to rub her nose. …

The oriole's glossy song. Up in the woods, a deer snorts in alarm for half an hour, until I think a bear or coyote must've found her fawn. …

The Baltimore oriole flies from treetop to treetop, laying claim to the yard. A lone chimney swift cuts arabesques in the cobalt blue sky. …

A slight breeze brings a shower of petals from the tulip tree, while a squirrel at the top of the black walnut makes it rain catkins. …

The early-morning air is already thick with the smell of heat. Sunlit rooms in a palace of leaves. The oriole's glossy song. …

Up before dawn, I watch the morning star climbing through the treetops. The birds awake: fragments of song like an orchestra tuning up. …

Soft taps from a burdock leaf under the drip line: it's raining. A rose-breasted grosbeak drops into the springhouse marsh to get a drink. …

Robins mating on a branch: one-second contacts spaced half a minute apart. Each time the male flies off and the female ruffles her feathers. …

The Morning Porch