An hour after sunrise, wild garlic heads still nod. A flower fly hovers in front of my glasses’ right lens. The smell of smoke.
Plummer’s Hollow
Sunlight dulled by high haze. A squirrel in the garden grooms its genitals, then pulls a soapwort blossom close for an almost-kiss.
Crystal-clear and cool—a perfect morning to sit and write. When I look up an hour later, a new spiderweb glistens in the eaves.
Rainbow at sunrise. A small woodpecker has found a very loud dead thing and is bashing his head against it for all he’s worth.
In the flat light of a cloudy morning, bracken fronds glow like the sun-bleached rib cages of seraphim—skeletons gone rococo.
Clear sky, sun in the treetops… “Cloudy conditions will continue all day,” my phone admonishes. The big tulip tree releases a yellow leaf.
Some unscheduled sunshine from a fissure in the clouds, while the breeze whispers of distant storms. I scratch a new itch to redness.
Humid and cool. Gnatcatcher parents and fledglings exchange silvery calls as a disheveled fledgling wren watches me from the eaves.
Cold and clear. The maternal clucks of a hen turkey. A nearly adult rabbit hops onto the porch and regards me with alarm.
Overcast at sunrise. The woodpeckers’ percussive breakfasts. A mosquito wanders over my propped-up feet.
A few drips of rain. The squeaky begging of a fledgling at the woods’ edge. It breaks cover to hazard flying—a flurry of wingbeats.
I watch a new squirrel figure out the tree-to-tree route out of the woods, backtracking, sizing things up. The sun goes in.
Another perfect morning. A wood thrush is singing next to the springhouse. The surrealism of it all when distilled into memory come December.
Cold and clear. Three waxwings join the sun high in the dead crown of a black locust, yellow bellies aglow.