August2014 – The Morning Porch/Patio

Sunday August 31, 2014

Dave Bonta August 31, 2014

In the steady rain, the cheerful bickering of goldfinches. A mosquito brushes against the hair on my arm, looking for a clear way in.

Dave Bonta August 30, 2014 2

The neighbor’s rooster is beginning to sound like a rooster. I notice that one side of the big maple has turned prematurely red.

Dave Bonta August 29, 2014 1

In the shadows of the trees, the grass bent low by dew. From the sunlit meadow, the drone of cold-hardy bumblebees servicing the goldenrod.

Dave Bonta August 28, 2014 2

A cicada starts his electric saw and stops. It’s too cold for cicadas. The sky’s a deep blue. A walnut leaf curled like a boat floats down.

Dave Bonta August 27, 2014 1

Light from the rising sun diffracts off a spider web in the eaves, turning it all the colors of the rainbow as it trembles in the wind.

Dave Bonta August 26, 2014 1

Blue sky above the fog. The sun stretches long white spider legs into the woods. The cackle of a pileated woodpecker, followed by wingbeats.

Dave Bonta August 25, 2014

Overcast and cool. Behind the occasional calls of wood pewee and solitary vireo, a continuous, grinding whine from the quarry. It’s Monday.

Dave Bonta August 24, 2014 1

A large spider rappels sideways across the yard on an invisible thread, while a bee struggles to maintain its balance on the porch rail.

Dave Bonta August 23, 2014 2

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…

Dave Bonta August 22, 2014

A trembling in the cattails: female yellowthroat. Birds flit through the treetops, smaller than the motes of grit in my ancient binoculars.