Cool and extraordinarily clear. With the sun on its gable end, the old springhouse glows like a lost tooth among the dark, swaying cattails.
Month: July 2016
A rabbit trots up the road, rounds the bend and continues past the house like the bearer of urgent news. A beetle with red elytra sails by.
The continual, three-syllable chatter of goldfinches. Wild garlic stalks have begun to straighten and the heads to shed their white masks.
Storm winds but no storm; leaves flash their pale undersides in the sun. The yellow ones fly free, tumbling like defective butterflies.
Catbird caterwauling by the cattails. Bumblebee buzzing in the bergamot. A gray fly walks the gray band of my sandal. The sun comes out.
The random yet purposeful flight of a great-spangled fritillary. The wind dies and a piece of thistle down descends straight into the yard.
Strong sun, deep shadow. Off in the woods, two deer-shaped silhouettes glide through a sunlit glade. A mourning dove coos a single note.
Overcast and cool. A buzzing below the porch: when I lean over the rail to look, a hummingbird rises from the jewelweed to meet my gaze.
The humidity has dropped at last. A goldfinch lands on a stalk of purple bergamot, bobbing in the breeze like an extra, yellow flower.
The crowds of wild garlic in my yard have uncoiled their white heads and seem to peer in all directions like bewildered cranes.
As clouds thin, the breeze turns hot. A pile of tailings under the bottom rail where the bald-faced hornet mines pulp for her paper house.
Humid and cool. A nuthatch spirals up rather than down a walnut tree trunk, turning upside-down only when it finds something to eat.
A shimmer of moisture in the air. A catbird lands on the cherry stump, cocks his head at me, and sings four notes through a half-open bill.
Overcast and cool. A small, strikingly orange and black moth flutters around the house, and I try unsuccessfully to catch it in my hand.