Backlit by the sun against the dark woods, a swarm of lekking gnats, their Brownian motion now faster, now slower. An annual cicada’s whine.
2015
July 12, 2015
The sun disappears before it clears the treetops. A red admiral butterfly and a carpenter bee rest on the porch railing, inches apart.
July 11, 2015
The air becomes clearer as I drink my coffee, the shadows deeper. A bumblebee methodically circles the purple mop-heads of bergamot.
July 10, 2015
Overcast and cool, with lower humidity at last. Still, the world gets much too close: mosquito in my ear, deer tick traversing my laptop.
July 9, 2015
Red-eyed vireo, common yellowthroat, indigo bunting: the primary colors of this morning’s diminished chorus. The dog twitches in her sleep.
July 8, 2015
Autumn has come to the dame’s-rocket in the yard, leaves turning orange and burgundy as the seedpods yellow like needle-thin fingernails.
July 7, 2015
Sunny and humid. A cabbage white butterfly with a strangely non-erratic flight path lands on a porch column: it’s missing half a wing.
July 6, 2015
Overcast but no rain yet, and a rumor of wind so faint only the tulip polar leaves pick it up. A syrphid fly hovers an inch from my glasses.
July 5, 2015
The sun emerging from mid-morning haze makes the rain-damp leaves shine. A scarlet tanager sings just out of sight at the wood’s edge.
July 4, 2015
In the downpour, a chipping sparrow forages for its breakfast beneath the lilac leaves, gleaning insects that sought shelter from the rain.
July 3, 2015
Overcast and cool. The dog suddenly rises from her lethargy to dive off the porch and chase a groundhog back under the house.
July 2, 2015
An inchworm summits the toe of my boot propped on the railing and reaches all about. I’m tempted to stand up and give it the tree it wants.
July 1, 2015
The sun makes a brief appearance; a breeze picks up. The bluebottle fly moves to the lee side of the railing and rubs its forefeet together.
June 30, 2015
The sudden buzz of a hummingbird rocketing back and forth in a mad parabola of attraction, the female watching from a dead lilac limb.