Rain and fog. With the power out, the world looms frighteningly close. Off in the woods, a bright clearing where some tree came down.
2011
September 4, 2011
The first two Asian stinkbugs stalk the porch posts and railings. I wave a foot at one of them and it drops to the floor with a dull thwack.
September 3, 2011
A hummingbird buzzes into the garden, and I follow her bill to the last bergamot flower’s four thin flagons. A truck clatters past.
September 2, 2011
A racket of jays in the crown of an oak, calling and making excited rattling sounds in their throats, as if cheering on the ripening acorns.
September 1, 2011
Mid-morning storm. A fox squirrel lopes through the patch of invasive myrtle, a slow flame the rain can’t quench.
August 31, 2011
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 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.
August 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.
August 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.
August 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.
August 26, 2011
A violently shaking black walnut branch passes its affliction to an adjacent locust: gray squirrel with an unripe walnut between its teeth.
August 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.
August 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.
August 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.