A large flock of small birds in the trees at the edge of the woods, hovering, diving, fluttering up like brown leaves returning to the tree.
August 2011
8/30/2011
Air so clear the sunlit leaves are as green as June again. Two chipmunks in adjacent territories begin clucking, falling in and out of sync.
8/29/2011
The rhythmic thumping of a monstrous digger at the quarry two miles away. My father hollers from his front porch to come look at a mole.
8/28/2011
A restless wind turns over leaves and passes through the house, as if searching for something it can’t find so far from the tropics.
8/27/2011
A downy woodpecker lands on the dead elm, his black-and-white feathers against the barkless trunk as startling and dramatic as a totem pole.
8/26/2011
A violently shaking black walnut branch passes its affliction to an adjacent locust: gray squirrel with an unripe walnut between its teeth.
8/25/2011
The rain-drenched soapwort petals are showing a faint wash of pink. Is that any way to age? Evening primrose leaves have turned barn-red.
8/24/2011
A Carolina wren rattles in the rain gutter, perching on the rim — its own feeding trough — and bobs up and down on its backward knees.
8/23/2011
Even on such a cold morning, a faint hush of crickets. A cicada starts up: less a whine than a loud whisper. The slow chant of a vireo.
8/22/2011
A plane drags its cross-shaped shadow over the ridge, loud as an evangelist. A few clouds. Half a moon abandoned in the center of the sky.
8/21/2011
A dark shield bug’s luminous green underside imparts a faint glow to its patch of column. Its antennae tremble violently when I draw near.
8/20/2011
A catbird scolds a feral cat: harsh, descending Nos. Slick with dew, the lanceolate leaves of goldenrod shimmer in the sun like green fish.
8/19/2011
A buck in velvet, his coat already turning gray, startles up out of the grass. A hungry hummingbird presses her bill to the metal flamingo.
8/18/2011
A black ant sways and staggers. A white caterpillar turns and begins to descend the white column, as if finally convinced it’s not a tree.