The silhouettes of small birds (goldfinches?) darting through the crown of a black birch as wind and driving rain strip it of leaves.
2013
October 6, 2013
Warm and humid. A crow lands on the top branch of a nearly bare black walnut tree. It caws three times and flies off with heavy wingbeats.
October 5, 2013
Walnut leaves are scattered all over the porch. What was the wind up to while I slept? In the woods, a migrant thrush expresses mild alarm.
October 4, 2013
A squirrel hurls itself from maple to locust, falling, grabbing hold. It runs to the end of a limb and stops, staring across at the walnut.
October 3, 2013
Every morning more shards of ridge-top sky are visible through the trees. In the black birch’s yellow crown, yellow-rumped warblers.
October 2, 2013
Sunny, warm, and quiet except for the distant wail of a locomotive, a phoebe calling at the woods’ edge, a cricket, the rustling of leaves.
October 1, 2013
With every gust of wind, a mob of yellow leaves comes swirling out over the meadow. From just inside the woods’ edge, the crash of a limb.
September 30, 2013
A shield bug on the railing is nearly immobilized by the cold, except for a slow, vaguely apotropaic waving of its antennae when I approach.
September 29, 2013
Silent as a thief, this sun climbing through the trees. The fog lifted an hour ago, but steam still rises from the yellow leaves.
September 28, 2013
All the stiltgrass has turned burgundy—”the wine-dark yard.” In the woods, a steady procession of falling birch leaves.
September 27, 2013
Whatever the male wren says, his mate always gives the same reply. He sings into the chimney like a child dropping pennies into a dry well.
September 26, 2013
Moon in the morning sky like a broken plate. Squirrels are climbing walnut trees and descending with fat green globes between their teeth.
September 25, 2013
Just because we live here year ’round doesn’t mean we don’t get restless this time of year. A V of geese low over the trees, headed north.
September 24, 2013
Sunny and cold. A phoebe calling up by the barn, as if this were some morning in March—and he was just arriving, not preparing to leave.