Monday September 21, 2015

Dave Bonta September 21, 2015

The wind is out of the east, and, slight as it is, carries an acrid, chemical smell from the sewage plant and the quarry’s dull roar.

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With each breeze, a shower of yellow leaves. Now and then a whole walnut leaf—spine and rib bones sinking together in this sea of air. …

Cold and damp. The distant rumble of the heating oil truck's diesel engine coming up the hollow. Voices of crows. Voices of children. …

‪The air's so clear I can see gnats 100 feet away—bright motes wandering among the trees. Dead leaves crowd together at the end of the porch. …

Overcast with quarry noise out of the east. A lone Canada goose flies low over the trees, its voice breaking like a teenage boy's. …

As leaves begin to flutter in the rain, I notice the small birds fluttering underneath them, like a flash mob that was there all along. …

A high-speed chase through the yard—one Cooper's hawk tailing another. Woodpecker pandemonium. High above, a jet leaves two blank lines. …

All the stiltgrass has turned burgundy—"the wine-dark yard." In the woods, a steady procession of falling birch leaves. …

With the walnut leaves down, I can once again see the line of aspens: still green, still full of ambiguous gestures. (Hello? Get lost?) …

The lowering sky lightens a little when the rain finally starts. Yellow leaves flutter down from the walnut tree like exhausted moths. …

How does the poison ivy know to turn the same salmon as the red maple it has infiltrated? A phoebe chases a kinglet from the roadside weeds. …

Brief shower from a blue sky; a rumble of thunder. Goldenrod by the woods' edge is turning yellow for the second time with fallen leaves. …

Steady rain. Two squirrels passing each other on the driveway circle briefly, as if on an invisible roundabout. A towhee's mindless chant. …

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