After another cold night, the lilac is carpeting its corner of the yard with the yellow-green curls of its suddenly devalued currency.
2013
November 3, 2013
Four degrees above freezing. When I nudge the foot of a hornet clinging to the bottom of the railing, she swings her leg out in a slow arc.
November 2, 2013
A large flock of Canada geese flies low overhead. As I listen to them fade away, I think about the Doppler Effect—how it flavors parting.
November 1, 2013
Sunny and almost warm. Armadas of leaves sail out across the meadow. A pale green lacewing flutters past the porch, fighting a headwind.
October 31, 2013
In the dim light, the sound of eight bone knives being whetted against a sapling. The buck straightens up and gives me a baleful look.
October 30, 2013
Juncos forage in the meadow, softly twittering. The dull booms of distant gunshots like great lead spikes being driven into the earth.
October 29, 2013
The tulip poplar’s green and gold leaves look almost as they did at first emergence back in May. But their whispering is so much louder now.
October 28, 2013
At the base of the hill, the meadow is white with frost. A small deer carries the white torch of its tail up into the sunlit woods.
October 27, 2013
Fourth-quarter moon in the branches of the black walnut, facing back toward the east and the first stain of dawn.
October 26, 2013
Cold and clear. Half the trees on the ridge are bare now, leaving narrow, blue windows all along the crest for the sun to pour through.
October 25, 2013
Cold, gray, and windy. Old webworm tents freighted with caterpillar corpses flap in the otherwise bare branches of the walnut trees.
October 24, 2013
First snow of the year: a squall of small flakes. The flamingo in the garden rapidly acquires a white shawl.
October 23, 2013
Cold rain. Three sparrows forage in the weeds next to a barberry bush, its green branches harboring masses of blood-red berries.
October 22, 2013
Cloudy and brisk; the woods are full of falling leaves. A sharp-shinned hawk flaps and glides just above the treetops, heading south.