Clouds with yellow bellies and a clearing breeze. One oak leaf spirals down stem-first, hits the ground and bounces.
October 25, 2024
Clear and still, with frost in the yard lingering well into mid-morning. A lone crow with the sun on its wings disappears off to the east.
October 24, 2024
Clear at dawn. A pileated woodpecker rockets silently through the thinning forest canopy, and lands on the side of an oak like the angel of death for carpenter ants, elegant black-and-white wings folding shut.
October 23, 2024
Before dawn, a moon with toothmarks. The tick tock of an acorn dropped by a flying squirrel.
October 22, 2024
Orange light seeps down the western ridge. The half moon high overhead has been abandoned by its entourage of stars. A crow sits in a newly bare walnut tree, yelling.
October 21, 2024
Wind rustling through fallen leaves in the moonlight. When it stops, I can hear the careful footsteps of a deer.
October 20, 2024
Patches of frost in the yard. The old lilac at the woods’ edge has chosen this time to partially re-leaf after the summer’s drought: half-sized, bright green leaves against the thinning trees.
October 19, 2024
In the frosty stillness, I watch moonlight disappear into dawnlight. Half an hour before sunrise, an acorn falls with a thud and all the sparrows begin twittering.
October 18, 2024
Dawn light with sparrow song. The full moon of my insomnia still glows above the western ridge as blood dries on the mousetrap under the stairs.
October 17, 2024
Each dawn this time of year brings revelation: the sky behind the ridgetop trees emerging piecemeal like a puzzle. And between the sun and the clouds there’s a new, transitional state: a crowd of yellow.
October 16, 2024
Overcast and gloomy. A single scarlet bough glows like a stoplight in the dark woods. The distant drumming of a pileated woodpecker.
October 15, 2024
Three deer are running back and forth through the woods: flashes of white tails, the thunder of hooves. A small black birch nearly bare of leaves is a-flutter with kinglets.
October 14, 2024
Out before dawn. The trees rock and talk in loud whispers. Orion appears through a hole in the clouds, dark armor glittering.
October 13, 2024
Cloudy at sunrise except just above the eastern horizon: the western ridge turns red, then slowly fades. Inversion makes the interstate sound much too close.