A steady shimmer of rain. At the woods’ edge, the first fall fashions have arrived, two maples trading their faded green for salmon.
September 2016
September 29, 2016
All-day rain. During a brief lull, a small, mixed flock of birds moves through the treetops like leaves flying upstream against the wind.
September 28, 2016
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.
September 27, 2016
Sun shimmers in the treetops while rain still drips from the roof. A squirrel climbs a walnut tree carrying a walnut, as if in some proverb.
September 26, 2016
The yellow is moving up from the goldenrod to the birches, tulip trees and elms. A red-bellied woodpecker’s shrill calls end in a trill.
September 25, 2016
Clear and cold. A squirrel trots into the woods with the green globe of a walnut clenched in its teeth. The oleaginous burble of a wren.
September 24, 2016
Breezy and cool. Three phoebes hawk for insects along the woods’ edge while a young pine or blackpoll warbler flits through the goldenrod.
September 23, 2016
A dead hornet lies on her back beside my chair with her six legs folded neatly over her thorax. At the woods’ edge, a rain of yellow leaves.
September 22, 2016
Clear and cold at sunrise. A migrant thrush calls from the not-yet-ruined temple of the trees. Overhead, the archaic smile of the moon.
September 21, 2016
The asters in my garden are finally opening, purple and gold above new, green growth, the lower leaves all dead from the summer’s drought.
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 19, 2016
A new bloom of gnats—I saw them swarming by the back door—and the yard is full of fall warblers, foraging with the chickadees and titmice.
September 18, 2016
Too dark to identify the small birds darting through the forest canopy. A walnut dislodged by a squirrel thumps hard against the ground.
September 17, 2016
The female hummingbird tries to get nectar out of my red iPad cover again, repeatedly probing the end of the fold, my fingers inches away.