Early-morning rain past, a chill breeze stirs in the tulip poplar beside the springhouse, four-lobed leaves waving like jazz hands on a thousand-armed bodhisattva, some green, some yellow.
October 8, 2024
Clear and cold. The red squirrel I’ve been hearing scold finally appears, racing up a bare walnut tree just as a deer hunter drags the first kill of the season out of the woods.
October 8, 2023
Windy and cold. In the wall of leaves at the woods’ edge, the first few fragments of what will be my winter sky.
October 8, 2022
Cold, clear, and quiet. The wind has almost died. Through yellow leaves, just a bit more sky.
October 8, 2021
Fog at sunrise. A doe leads her two grown fawns to the wild apple tree—an exuberant clatter of hooves.
October 8, 2020
A classic October morning, bright and crisp. The black cat slinks down the driveway, stepping between the fat fallen walnuts.
October 8, 2018
Fog and a fine drizzle. A monarch butterfly, oranger than any leaf in view, glides past in the wrong direction. The cheep cheep of a peeper.
October 8, 2017
The goldenrod is all brown, but each breeze sprinkles it with yellow from the woods. The last hornet returns to her ghost town of a nest.
October 8, 2016
It’s pouring. Lichens glow on rain-dark trees, pale blue and green rashes. Through a thickening carpet of fallen leaves, the bright moss.
October 8, 2015
A sharp-shinned hawk keeps chasing flickers in the yard; they yell at the effrontery and circle right back each time. A wren chatters alarm.
October 8, 2014
Wind tosses the leaves that last night were glistening in the moonlight. A blue jay does its red-tailed hawk imitation, but nobody’s fooled.
October 8, 2013
Clear and cold. The leaves at the end of the porch have gathered into a dense crowd, as if for warmth. A raven’s distant croak.
October 8, 2010
Cold as it is, the birds seem to avoid the sun. In one shadow, a wren putt-putts. In another, a song sparrow shakes water from his wings.
October 8, 2008
Clouds at dawn change from red to orange to pale yellow, like black gum trees in reverse. A towhee lands in the lilac—a splash of rose.