Tuesday April 09, 2013

Dave Bonta April 9, 2013

A wild turkey gobbling on the far ridge. Two field sparrows trade calls, notes rising as they accelerate like engines being revved up.

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The dial thermometer's red arrow has just missed 0°C. A black tiger moth caterpillar is curled by the stoop like a dropped comma. …

The laboring motor in the septic service truck, pumping out our tanks—I try to hear anything else. The Carolina wren. An electric drill. …

Crystal-clear sky crossed by flocks of goldfinches. Church bells clang the 8 o'clock hour, a sad exultation that once meant time for school. …

The sun moves through the foggy woods like a spider at the center of her web. The hollow tocks of chipmunks up and down the hillside. …

Clear and cold after last night's showers. In the garden, the asters are all pinched shut like collapsed eyes with long, purple lashes. …

The clack of acorns hitting branches on their way to the ground. I'm beating myself up trying to kill a mosquito reconnoitering my torso. …

The thin fog turns blue before disappearing. At the woods' edge, ants rise on filmy wings like a curl of smoke. …

Two flocks of local geese flying in tandem, one following each ridge, skimming the treetops: their raucous cries come from all directions. …

The walnut trees are already losing their leaves, turning into grotesquely well-hung skeletons a-tremble with squirrels. …

Sitting in the garden while the porch's new coat of paint dries, I notice the peony leaves too have turned red. A waxwing's glossy calls. …

The door under the porch is ajar, as if a bear or burglar had been there. Strangled cries from overhead: a crow diving at a slow hawk. …

A gray, cold morning. The rusty-hinge scolding of a squirrel multiplies and turns into a flock of grackles, pivoting on its thousand wings. …

The Morning Porch