Wednesday October 04, 2017

Dave Bonta October 4, 2017

A squirrel on a walnut limb examines each nut but leaves without picking any. In the strong sunlight, the meteor streak of a wasp’s excreta.

Previous Post: Previous Post

Next Post: Next Post

Sunny and cold. The peony sprouts are at that stage of development where it's hard not to see them as little red hands—waving, drowning. …

Amid the heavy raindrops, the lighter ghosts of just-melted snowflakes. Treetops sway this way and that. The towhee goes on calling. …

Under the sort of sky poets call sullen, a robin's relentless bowl of cheer. Leave it to the white-throated sparrow to add a wistful note. …

‪The buzzing dog-fights of carpenter bees competing for access to the porch's old wood. The first tiger swallowtail flutters into the yard.‬ …

The temperature rises and with it the insects: those that buzz, those that drift on filmy wings. Behind the trees, the blue ache of sky. …

In the mid-morning quiet, weak sunlight sets the blossoming maple trees aglow: clouds of red and orange all along the woods' edge. …

A steady thrum of rain on the porch roof. The big red maple at the corner of the old corral is a cloud of salmon blossoms in the half light. …

The chickadee hears squirrels chattering alarm at a hawk and freezes in the mouth of her half-finished hole, dark eyes darting all about. …

Breezy and cool. Small white moths—or are they flower petals?—flutter against the grey sky. A field sparrow's ascending notes. …

Morning full of the cries of woodpeckers—part ululation, part rusty hinge. Like the sounds the trees make in a winter wind, speeded up. …

Squirrels grapple on a skinny branch 20 feet up. One falls to the ground with a loud plop and races off, sun shining through its tail. …

Another cold and rainy morning. A white spot up in the woods is nothing but foam on a black birch trunk. How long until the shadbush bloom? …

Clear and quiet. Off in the woods, the jagged pine snag gleams yellowish-white, as if in imitation of the lightning bolt that killed it. …

The Morning Porch