May 2016

Tuesday May 31, 2016

Dave Bonta May 31, 2016 1

I take my eye off the clear sky for a moment and suddenly there are clouds—four streaks beside the moon’s thin frown. Cerulean warbler song.

Monday May 30, 2016

Dave Bonta May 30, 2016

At the woods’ edge, three yellow hats: iris gone feral. A hummingbird rockets back and forth through the lilac, showing off for a female.

Sunday May 29, 2016

Dave Bonta May 29, 2016

Exotic dancers of the Lepidoptera have names like Little Wood Satyr and Pearl Crescent. Their underwings bear black suns and crescent moons.

Saturday May 28, 2016

Dave Bonta May 28, 2016

Despite the heat, the oriole’s enthusiasm is undiminished. The walking onions, like ostriches of fable, are stretching to bury their heads.

Friday May 27, 2016

Dave Bonta May 27, 2016

A large leaf-footed bug stalks up and down a porch column, its shadow at its side. Two carpenter bees clash like airborne sumo wrestlers.

Thursday May 26, 2016

Dave Bonta May 26, 2016

The delicate sneezes of a deer grazing on the thorny canes of multiflora rose bushes. She stretches a hind leg up to rub her nose.

Wednesday May 25, 2016

Dave Bonta May 25, 2016 1

Warm and hazy. The yard buzzes with native bees pollinating the alien, invasive myrtle. Off in the woods, the glint of old glass.

September 20, 2017
Crystal-clear sky crossed by flocks of goldfinches. Church bells clang the 8 o'clock hour, a sad exultation that once meant time for school.
September 20, 2016
The sun moves through the foggy woods like a spider at the center of her web. The hollow tocks of chipmunks up and down the hillside.
September 20, 2015
Clear and cold after last night's showers. In the garden, the asters are all pinched shut like collapsed eyes with long, purple lashes.
September 20, 2014
The clack of acorns hitting branches on their way to the ground. I'm beating myself up trying to kill a mosquito reconnoitering my torso.
September 20, 2013
The thin fog turns blue before disappearing. At the woods' edge, ants rise on filmy wings like a curl of smoke.
September 20, 2012
Two flocks of local geese flying in tandem, one following each ridge, skimming the treetops: their raucous cries come from all directions.
September 20, 2011
The walnut trees are already losing their leaves, turning into grotesquely well-hung skeletons a-tremble with squirrels.
September 20, 2010
Sitting in the garden while the porch's new coat of paint dries, I notice the peony leaves too have turned red. A waxwing's glossy calls.
September 20, 2009
The door under the porch is ajar, as if a bear or burglar had been there. Strangled cries from overhead: a crow diving at a slow hawk.
September 20, 2008
A gray, cold morning. The rusty-hinge scolding of a squirrel multiplies and turns into a flock of grackles, pivoting on its thousand wings.