Sunday September 22, 2013

Dave Bonta September 22, 2013

The hornets stream in and out of their hole in the garden, departing to the south, returning from the east. A towhee calling in the dogwood.

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Raindrops dangle from the clothesline like diminutive socks. A sudden shower under the mock orange as two gray squirrels race through it. …

I wish I had names for all the filmy-winged insects that appear like spirits when the light is strong and the shadows behind them are deep. …

Trembling in the top of an oak where a squirrel gathers green acorns. Blurry shadows from a sun shining through cloud. A cuckoo's soft call. …

I feel watched, somehow. I spot a round gap high in the foliage, dark and deep. Then there's the den hole in the elm, an empty eye-socket... …

A shimmer in the air thickens into drizzle, dripping from bedraggled rudbeckia petals, limp tubes of bergamot and the crisp, white soapwort. …

Sound is out of the east. And even first thing in the morning, the machines at the quarry sound tired. They bellow. They groan. They keen. …

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. …

Windy and cool. One branch of the lilac shivers as a Carolina wren conducts a thorough investigation, ticking loudly after each new find. …

Halfway up the ridge, the hectoring alarm-calls of a squirrel. A few seconds later, a deer joins in: explosive snorts. The sun comes out. …

Cool and humid. Up in the woods, two chipmunks start a border dispute, ticking in sync like bombs set to go off at the same moment. …

The Morning Porch/Patio