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.

Previous Post: Previous Post

Next Post: Next Post

Cold and heavily overcast. A jay switches from his own call to red-tailed hawk, then chickadee. In the meadow, white-throated sparrows. …

The smell of wood smoke; I think of the fires in California. A dead limb at the woods' edge crashes to the ground. A monarch's small flame. …

Color is creeping into the tall oaks: here a splash of deep orange, there a branch gone burgundy, and just above, a pale smudge of sun. …

The fluting of geese from somewhere above the clouds. A bowhunter dressed in green camouflage walks out of the autumn woods. …

A chipmunk hangs by its hind feet from the thorny branch of a barberry bush, picking berries and stuffing them into its bulging cheeks. …

Rain. And in the woods, a continual downward flight of leaves, meandering from side to side like all lost things. The rain falls harder. …

The black locusts are beginning to yellow as the black birches beside them deepen to orange, alive with kinglets and glowing in the rain. …

A patch of silver in the yard: first frost. A jet glints in the rising sun, its short contrail twice as bright as the crescent moon. …

Sun in the treetops. A bluejay lands on a bare branch and does a good Cooper's hawk impression: eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh. Such an April sound! …

The Morning Porch/Patio