After verifying that the latest vehicle to drive up does not contain her people, the old dog lies down, resignation written in every muscle.
Plummer’s Hollow
Just audible over the tractor: a tanager’s hoarse song. The male flicker flies out of its nest hole carrying an offspring’s white fecal sac.
Cloudy and cold. The catbird sings in his inside voice, while over at the neighbors’, a hen announces her latest masterpiece at top volume.
Cloudy and cold. The weeds below the porch tremble where a chipmunk forages for seeds. The dog wanders into the garden to graze on grass.
The dame’s-rocket in my yard has reached the late baroque stage of flowering, clumps as chubby as cherubs flying out from the main stalks.
A light mist rises from the rain-soaked grass. Just as I’m writing this, a hummingbird buzzes in to inspect the red lettering on my T-shirt.
Cool and humid. A chickadee and bluebird perch side by side in the walnut tree before flying down into their respective holes in the stump.
Cool at sunrise, and with warmer air aloft, the roar of the quarry to our east rolls in over the ridge as if it were the sun’s own engines.
Cloudy and cool. The springhouse phoebes hawk flies and mate at the edge of the woods, trailed by two fledglings with beaks agape.
The rain starts just as I come out onto the porch. White blossoms atop a black locust tree fade into the crowd of leaves mirroring the sky.
The oriole’s glossy song. Up in the woods, a deer snorts in alarm for half an hour, until I think a bear or coyote must’ve found her fawn.
A warm morning. The yard is filled with the bright wings of insects drifting up and down, back and forth against the dark woods.
The white porch railing is a landing-strip for butterflies: red-spotted purple, little wood satyr. A fat contrail lingers above the ridge.
Three degrees above freezing. The dead vireo in my garden is perfectly preserved except for its missing eyes—red prizes for ants.