A wasp flying in low sunlight: hind legs dangling bright orange, and behind her thin waist the black, banded abdomen shaped like a bomb.
Plummer’s Hollow
Deep blue sky, with the sun gilding the treetops. A bumblebee circles the bergamot patch, her small engine running fine despite the cold.
A rare fine day—everything’s so clear, so bright! An enormous horsefly lands on my leg and for a long moment I study the blade in its mouth.
A new face in moss on the trunk of the big maple: bulbous clown nose, Mona Lisa smile. A dragonfly quarters over the permanently damp yard.
The wild black currants are succumbing to their usual wilt—an extra shadow eating them from the inside as the stream gurgles between them.
Now that thistles are going to seed, the goldfinches are nesting at last. Two males chase—streaks of crayon-yellow through the treetops.
A lone stalk of whorled loosestrife stands amidst the flattened stiltgrass, its blossoms overturned by last night’s storm. The stream roars.
Cool and quiet. A female hummingbird ignores the bergamot to drink from the soapwort, their plain, pale faces glowing in the weak sunshine.
Clear and cold as October, with an inversion layer to match: the rising sun grinds and thunders with the sound of the quarry to our east.
The dark green wall of the woods begins to vibrate—a shimmer of mizzle. The dog’s muzzle rotates, nose twitching. A cedar waxwing’s whistle.
Fog gives way to mid-morning haze. The neighbors’ rooster doesn’t so much crow as moan. I listen to cardinal song and imagine it’s February.
Backlit by the sun against the dark woods, a swarm of lekking gnats, their Brownian motion now faster, now slower. An annual cicada’s whine.
The sun disappears before it clears the treetops. A red admiral butterfly and a carpenter bee rest on the porch railing, inches apart.
The air becomes clearer as I drink my coffee, the shadows deeper. A bumblebee methodically circles the purple mop-heads of bergamot.