8:00 o’clock church bells and the fog has nearly all lifted. A nuthatch calls down by the stream, soon joined by chickadees. From my mother’s house, the measured voices of NPR.
Dave Bonta
September 18, 2024
Heavily overcast and still—a perfect morning to watch walnut leaves fall: the flutterers, the gliders, the tumblers, the spirallers, and the rare ones that float straight down.
September 17, 2024
A white sky only now that the banks of white snakeroot are beginning to fade. In between: green and gold. The drought-struck lilac dying back.
September 16, 2024
Sun in the top of the tall tulip poplar—yellow crowning yellow. The last nighttime cricket falls silent. Off through the thinning woods, new chinks of sky.
September 15, 2024
Quiet and cool. A hummingbird hovers over the bright pink cover of my book: Phantom Pain Wings by Kim Hyesoon.
September 14, 2024
Distant shots from a semi-automatic: poppoppoppoppoppop. The flutter of a falling leaf. A squirrel’s footsteps on the roof.
September 13, 2024
6:24. The cardinal sings a few times and falls silent. 6:26. The whippoorwill calls a few times and falls silent. 6:29. The Carolina wren starts up.
September 12, 2024
Cool and still with murky sunlight and yellow leaves dropping one by one. From the north and east, the guttural hum of industry—that drone note.
September 11, 2024
Another gorgeous, cool morning. Two ravens fly over at sunrise, croaking. A phoebe in the distance is just audible under the usual cascade of wren song.
September 10, 2024
Clear and still. A chipmunk chips from her hole in the rock wall beside the porch, getting a much more resonant sound than her rival up in the woods.
September 9, 2024
A cold and cloudy dawn. The thump and clatter of hooves, deer crashing through the underbrush—hounded not by a predator but the first stirrings of rut. A migrant thrush’s soft call.
September 8, 2024
Breezy and cool at mid-morning. A blue jay’s rusty croon in the crown of an oak. The plop of dropped acorns.
September 7, 2024
A soft, steady rain at dawn. At sunrise, a hummingbird buzzes in to sip from the jewelweeds under the porch roof dripline.
September 6, 2024
Another cool, clear, still morning. The bang of a walnut on a metal roof. A chipmunk’s metronome.