A Carolina wren rattles in the rain gutter, perching on the rim — its own feeding trough — and bobs up and down on its backward knees.
Dave Bonta
Even on such a cold morning, a faint hush of crickets. A cicada starts up: less a whine than a loud whisper. The slow chant of a vireo.
A plane drags its cross-shaped shadow over the ridge, loud as an evangelist. A few clouds. Half a moon abandoned in the center of the sky.
A dark shield bug’s luminous green underside imparts a faint glow to its patch of column. Its antennae tremble violently when I draw near.
A catbird scolds a feral cat: harsh, descending Nos. Slick with dew, the lanceolate leaves of goldenrod shimmer in the sun like green fish.
A buck in velvet, his coat already turning gray, startles up out of the grass. A hungry hummingbird presses her bill to the metal flamingo.
A black ant sways and staggers. A white caterpillar turns and begins to descend the white column, as if finally convinced it’s not a tree.
A male and female goldfinch glean seeds from a tall bull thistle. She eats in silence while he in his loud yellow suit chatters on and on.
As always when the air is clear and the sun at a low angle, I’m astonished by how many small insects drift back and forth between the trees.
A pileated woodpecker heading for the tall locusts lets out a whoop with every wingbeat, its crest like the bloody barb of a harpoon.
The storm just past, a bald-faced hornet flies back and forth over the flattened stiltgrass. The crickets pick up where they left off.
Darkening sky. A downy woodpecker gleaning breakfast from the dead cherry’s flaking limbs pauses to scratch his face with one fast foot.
Clear and cold. In their communal tent, the caterpillars lie still as mummies in a tomb—gray forms already in their burial wrappings.
Crystal-clear at sunrise: I’m aware of every smudge and scratch on my glasses. A wood pewee’s call reduced to a single, interrogatory note.