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.
2011
August 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.
August 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.
August 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.
August 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.
August 17, 2011
A male and female goldfinch glean seeds from a tall bull thistle. She eats in silence while he in his loud yellow suit chatters on and on.
August 16, 2011
As always when the air is clear and the sun at a low angle, I’m astonished by how many small insects drift back and forth between the trees.
August 15, 2011
A pileated woodpecker heading for the tall locusts lets out a whoop with every wingbeat, its crest like the bloody barb of a harpoon.
August 14, 2011
The storm just past, a bald-faced hornet flies back and forth over the flattened stiltgrass. The crickets pick up where they left off.
August 13, 2011
Darkening sky. A downy woodpecker gleaning breakfast from the dead cherry’s flaking limbs pauses to scratch his face with one fast foot.
August 12, 2011
Clear and cold. In their communal tent, the caterpillars lie still as mummies in a tomb—gray forms already in their burial wrappings.
August 11, 2011
Crystal-clear at sunrise: I’m aware of every smudge and scratch on my glasses. A wood pewee’s call reduced to a single, interrogatory note.
August 10, 2011
Power out, I spend the morning on the porch. A large, black assassin bug lands on the sunny side of a column and stalks up toward the roof.
August 9, 2011
Drizzle, and from the woods, the steady dripping that makes it sound as if the real rain is there, on the far side of the yard. Slug trail.