Even at late morning, it’s chilly when the sun goes in. The yard is now white with snakeroot flowers. The distant sound of a power saw.
Plummer’s Hollow
Cool and clear, the grass bent low by dew. At 10:00, the neighbor’s rooster begins to crow, and I look up to see a few unexpected clouds.
A flat white sky. The ambiguous gestures of random leaves, waving or perhaps drowning in the thick air. A hummingbird is here and gone.
Just after full daylight, a patter of raindrops on the roof. My guests are departing. The steady, dull roar of machines at the quarry.
Still cool at sunrise. A large beetle zooms past. Faint noise from the highway. The desultory calls of a red-eyed vireo.
Ground fog in the corner of the meadow glowing faintly pink in the sunrise. A flicker flies out of the old den in the dead elm tree.
Hazy and warm. As the sun climbs, the cicada chorus grows, and the field cricket in the garden chirps faster and faster.
Another perfect morning. A hummingbird lifts off from the bergamot, tailed closely by a moth. The quiet, anxious calls of a titmouse.
Clear and cold. A blue-headed vireo calls from a sun-drenched treetop in the yard, answered only by the resident wood pewee.
Cloudy and cool. Cricket trills and ticks are joined by chipmunk tocks. A tulip tree leaf sails in wide circles with its stem for a rudder.
The wind from a distant storm sends yellowed walnut leaves spinning to the ground. In the meadow, the first goldenrod blossoms are opening.
Overcast, cool and quiet. The muffled crows of the neighbor’s rooster, still inside the coop. A small, brown moth lands on my shoulder.
Workmen up at the other house: the whine of an annual cicada in the trees alternates with an actual electric saw.
A dragonfly with shimmering, banded wings and an electric blue abdomen lands on a garlic seed-head, falls still and nearly disappears.