A hummingbird lands on the upturned tip of a dead elm branch; the branch doesn’t move a hair. The first open peony lies on its side.
Dave Bonta
June 4, 2008
Foggy morning. A short-lived bright period brings a faint sound of traffic from I-99. I hear the hummingbird’s small motor in the garden.
June 3, 2008
Two squirrels slowly circle the trunk of a walnut tree, gray against gray, frenetic tails sending Morse messages through the heartwood.
June 2, 2008
Sun in the tops of the tall locust trees. Even in blossom, they look disreputable—as if they’d been targeted by a passing flock of geese.
June 1, 2008
5:20. The bat returns to his roost in the crack between the porch roof and the house like a handkerchief returning to its pocket.
May 31, 2008
In the light rain, a squirrel feasts on red maple keys. Reduced to pieces, the blades flutter straight down, robbed of all ability to spin.
May 30, 2008
In one direction, a singing wood thrush; in the other, a red-eyed vireo. Evocative refrain or dull repetition? It’s all in the delivery.
May 29, 2008
Clouds like scales on the belly of a blue fish. In the garden, ants immobilized by the cold cling to the sweet pink seams of peony buds.
May 28, 2008
The flower heads on the white lilac are half-brown now. Two phoebes take turns flying into the bush, momentarily quelling insistent peeps.
May 27, 2008
Warm, humid, and overcast. In the side garden, the first twelve yellow irises opened in the night. Small flies walk all over my legs.
May 26, 2008
Robins mating on a branch: one-second contacts spaced half a minute apart. Each time the male flies off and the female ruffles her feathers.
May 23, 2008
The gibbous moon no sooner clears the trees than the sun comes up. First crystal-clear morning in weeks, and I’m off to New Jersey.
May 22, 2008
A male robin scours the forest floor for twigs; the female combs the lawn for dead grass. The small thorn bush shakes when they both fly in.
May 21, 2008
Sun! I hear the crow that thinks it’s a duck, a catbird’s simultaneous translation of a wood thrush song. Last night, I dreamed of bluejays.