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

Rain and fog at daybreak. Some intrepid deer hunter fires a single shot. I wonder how dry the squirrels are in their high, ball-shaped dreys. …

Frost on the bent-down blades of cattails. Two single-prop planes from different directions—their drones blending then separating again. …

‪I have to wipe the fog off my chair before I can sit. After a while, it begins to rain. In the dead meadow weeds, a commentary of sparrows.‬ …

This isn't how Hollywood would've scripted the deer season opener: flat light with no hint of shadow. Shots don't ring out—they merely thud. …

White ground, white sky, but the roofs are shedding their snow drip by drip. Traffic noise coming from the west—sure sign of rain. …

I bathe in the idea of sun more than in the sunlight itself—feeble and without much warmth. A woodpecker beats his head against a dead tree. …

After weeks of near-absence, crows call and quarrel in all directions. It must be the gut piles, venison viscera festering among the leaves. …

A rabbit wanders back and forth in the half-light of dawn—a nervous eater, hunched around its hunger. When it freezes, it almost disappears. …

A cold, wet morning that must test the hunters' mettle. Over the rain, the rattle of the window-tapping cardinal clashing with her nemesis. …

The opening day of rifle season. Deer run back and forth through the laurel—each shift of the wind must bring a different human's stink. …

A slate-gray sky. From the birdfeeder up at my parents' house, the sound of squabbling crowds, pushy as bargain shoppers ahead of the sleet. …

Rising late, I get a faceful of sun. I watch the resident naturalist's blaze-orange vest and cap appearing and disappearing among the trees. …

The Morning Porch