Tuesday August 21, 2012

Dave Bonta August 21, 2012

Tent caterpillar webs billow, white as sails—still full of the dawn fog. Two nuthatches kvetch back and forth at the woods’ edge.

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Cold and clear. Jays call up in the woods: at least one oak must’ve defied the drought and held on to its acorns. …

Like hair on a head the way the stiltgrass falls about in orderly whorls. A raven flies over, hoarse cries out of sync with its wingbeats. …

A monarch butterfly en route to Mexico glides over the house, past the orange leaves on the last living branch of a hollow maple. …

A new bloom of gnats—I saw them swarming by the back door—and the yard is full of fall warblers, foraging with the chickadees and titmice. …

Even unseen, the raven crying rawk rawk from high overhead makes the flat white sky more interesting. In the yard, a monarch's regal orange. …

A faint smell of sewage on the wind. A wren singing from atop the springhouse in the absence of a female supplies his own call-and-response. …

Goldfinch, nuthatch, catbird, wren. The herb-garden chipmunk, cheeks bulging, pauses on top of the wall to groom its paws. …

A dozen vultures fresh from their communal roost circle low overhead, wings shining white whenever they tilt toward the sun—angels of death. …

A meadow vole takes an after-death journey into the forest in the jaws of a cat, who holds her head high for once and does not slink. …

A succession of anxious or querulous calls—nuthatch, crow, Cooper's hawk, pileated woodpecker—until sunrise reddens the western ridge. …

Clear and cold. I follow my breath as it drifts over the ridges and valleys of the tin roof sheltering the oil tanks. A patter of acorns. …

Gold is spreading from the goldenrod up into the trees, here and there: walnut, elm, birch. A jay dives into the lilac: blue from the sky. …

The Morning Porch