Fog rising into the treetops. The garden chipmunk keeps me company, sitting on the end of the wall, scratching his belly.
Plummer’s Hollow
Steady rain of the sort we’ve needed for months. Lily-of-the-valley’s drought-burnt leaves turn slick as tongues.
Harvest moon setting behind the western ridge, followed by a faint moon dog in the wash of cirrus.
Thick fog slowly infused with sunlight. A squirrel drops pieces of black walnut shell into the dew-soaked weeds.
Light rain accompanying a front. As it tapers off, the yard fills with small birds—yellow-rumped and other warblers combing the leaves for breakfast.
Half an hour before sunrise, the first migrant wood thrush arrives at the woods’ edge, calling softly. A sneeze gathers in my sinuses.
A break in the showers: it’s overcast but bright. A slug glides slowly up the porch railing with its 27,000 teeth.
Rain prolongs the early-morning light till well past 10:00. A chipmunk appears in the garden, bustling among the drenched weeds.
Overcast with a restless feeling to the air. When the rain comes it is an autumn rain, quiet, lacking the exuberance of breeding birds.
As above, so below: white sky, white snakeroot. A hummingbird buzzes in to bother the jewelweed below the porch.
Cool and clear except for wisps of shredded contrails. Sound is out of the east: rumble of a train, the quarry’s grind.
Sunny and cool. A hummingbird moves slowly along a porch rafter flicking the fast whip of her tongue, testing, tasting.
Sitting on the ridgetop I become subject to the crows’ concern. A pileated woodpecker veers from its course. The sun comes up.
Out before sunrise to watch a thunderstorm that never appears. The clouds half-clear. Squirrels go about their business.