Cloudless and cool. I wonder idly about the target shooter a couple of miles away, their preferred pronouns. A fly walks the rim of my mug.
Plummer’s Hollow
Weak sun. Squirrels rummage through the dead grass, studiously ignoring each other, pretending they’re not really after buried treasure.
Her shadow draws my eye to the pileated woodpecker flying as silently as a pickpocket’s hand from one trunk to the next. A flash of crimson.
The waxy surfaces of laurel and rhododendron leaves glitter in the sun. A bluebird sits silently on a branch, waiting for insects to stir.
Rain thickening. Puddles in the driveway acquire something like feathers, as if the water is already preparing for its return trip.
Unseasonably warm. A bluebottle fly descends a porch column as slowly as a sleepwalker. A bit of cattail down drifts back and forth.
So clear and bright I can see a strand of spider silk still flying from the eaves. The rumble of our neighbor’s truck breaks the silence.
Leap day. The sun comes out while snowflakes still circle the house. Around the old ruin of a dog statue, daffodils’ green fingertips.
A fresh dusting of snow slowly vanishes—but if the sun has a tongue, the breeze has a bite. The methodical taptaptap of a downy woodpecker.
The ground is white again, and the shape of the wind sketched out by flying flakes. A tree sparrow sings, homesick perhaps for the tundra.
Thick fog: soundproofing against all but the closest chirps. A nuthatch descends a locust trunk, does an about-face, and scuttles back up.
The corrugated steel roof over the heating oil tanks registers a small shower I might’ve otherwise missed: soft taps, a scattering of dots.
Scattered honks from an unseen traffic of geese above the clouds. It’s warm. The mourning doves are finishing each other’s sentences.
Squirrel claws scrabbling on bark; song sparrow songs. The sun gleams on the glossy black wings of a vulture skimming the treetops.