Humid, overcast and cool. I study the flamboyant gestures of certain meadow plants already more than half-way dead. A fat beetle flies past.
August 2021
8/29/2021
Almost fall. The motherless fawn running out of the woods has lost its spots but not its cloud of flies.
8/28/2021
The fog slowly lifts, except where it’s been trapped by funnel spider webs. The cardinal’s cheer seems a bit misplaced.
8/27/2021
Fog. A quiet gurgle from the stream, still digesting last night’s downpour. The only other song belongs to a vireo.
8/26/2021
Ten minutes till sunrise. The gibbous moon is losing its glow like a guitar pick thrown from a stage.
8/25/2021
In the dawn light, a hummingbird double-checks that I’m not a flower, hovering over my head like a wild thought.
8/24/2021
A stratum of sunlit leaves forming in the forest understory. A cicada wakes up. Under the house, something coughs.
8/23/2021
The meadow and its crickets. The full moon emerges from the clouds upside-down in every drop of dew.
8/22/2021
A few minutes after moonset, and the ground fog is still aglow. A screech owl’s monotone trill.
8/21/2021
Sun in the trees and a small spot of orange beside the porch: a Mexican sunflower blooming despite having twice been dinner for a groundhog.
8/20/2021
Cardinal joined by a whippoorwill. The white shapes in the yard turn out to be snakeroot.
8/19/2021
Breezy with sometime sunshine. A hummingbird’s buzz grows louder as she hovers in front of a window, bill to bill with an unexpected rival.
8/18/2021
Rain and warblers. An earth-shaking blast from the quarry two miles away. The soft susurrus of tree crickets.
8/17/2021
Sunrise hidden by clouds. Towhee and cardinal’s usual soliloquies. A mosquito sings her need into my ear.