Two squirrels trace a fast single helix down the trunk of the big maple. The typewriter rattle of their claws.
Plummer’s Hollow
A warmer morning; the blue sky harbors an ever-so-slight suggestion of haze. The sound of rodent teeth chiseling open a black walnut.
Equinox. I spot some goldenrod, done flowering, turning yellow a second time. My mother stops by to tell me about a singing porcupine.
Cool and clear. The witch hazel in front of the living room window, which I haven’t gotten around to pruning out, is already turning gold.
The dial thermometer’s red arrow has just missed 0°C. A black tiger moth caterpillar is curled by the stoop like a dropped comma.
Cold and clear. Jays call up in the woods: at least one oak must’ve defied the drought and held on to its acorns.
First light. Ghostly figures in the meadow shrink into common snakeroot. The distant gargle of a truck jake-breaking off the interstate.
Dawn. Two wrens rustle awake inside the old hornets’ nest. A doe and her nearly grown fawn graze in the yard.
Sun grown vague with haze from the burning of the west. The drone note of tree crickets, so much more introspective than cicadas.
Weak sun. The bright blue of New York asters almost lost among the goldenrod. It takes me a moment to place a distant bird call: chicken.
The towhee interrupts his window-tapping to attend to fledglings in the tall grass. Tree sparrows in the garden trill as they mate.
Overcast and cool. The wood thrushes continue to call well past mid-morning. Beebalms are beginning to flaunt their spiky, scarlet coiffures.
Five hummingbirds briefly orbit the feeder before taking off after each other. A gnatcatcher bombs the driveway with a nestling’s fecal sac.
A goldfinch lands on a hummingbird feeder and looks all around for seeds. The butterfly known as a red-spotted purple rests on a folding chair.