A monarch butterfly en route to Mexico glides over the house, past the orange leaves on the last living branch of a hollow maple.
Plummer’s Hollow
Foggy and still, save for the occasional crash-down of a black walnut. The dog I’m sitting noses through the long grass, inhaling deeply.
Out early, I listen to barred owls, watch the pulsing light of a glowworm crossing the walk like a satellite on an exceptionally low orbit.
Sun floods the treetops. A red-tailed hawk glides in and lands with a thump. In the dark lilac, a tiny winter wren bustles about.
The corpse of a bee hangs six feet above the garden, swaddled in webbing. Inside its fence, the amelanchier sprout is starting to redden.
Small birds flit through the tops of the locust trees—migrating warblers, no doubt. Birds of passage. Every now and then the cricket pauses.
Beads of rain reveal an orb-weaver’s web hung impossibly high above the garden, its maker like one darker drop with her legs tucked in.
Awakened at first light by a whip-poor-will, I find my lost hat and sit outside watching a white cat hunt at the edge of the road.
Strands of silk left by spider or caterpillar aeronauts shimmer in and out of view. From the woods, a chipmunk’s high-pitched monologue.
Hard to pin-point the emotions evoked by familiar bird calls, beyond just “blue jay feeling,” “nuthatch feeling,” “goldfinch feeling.”
I notice a new patch of touch-me-nots in the tall weeds, beaded with rain, their nectar-filled tails curled primly in wait for hummingbirds.
Cool and almost clear. A few clouds come scudding from the same direction as the highway noise, as if themselves powered by small engines.
The stiltgrass that has taken over the garden bends low with dew, and I remember: these are the “autumn grasses” beloved of Basho and Buson.
I cede the porch to the hornets and sit under the portico. The view: a garden full of weeds, a least flycatcher landing briefly on an aster.