It’s hot. A black ichneumon wasp lands on the white porch ceiling and walks into the dark cave of a knothole, translucent wings twitching.
Only when the begging cries of the crow fledglings finally cease do I notice the air’s clarity, golden light glistening on a black birch.
A cuckoo climbs the trunk of the tulip tree, pausing every few inches to search for prey. The dump truck goes by with a rattle and clang.
White sky thin enough for the sun to shine through. The sound of a bear tearing at a log. A ripple of squirrel alarms as a hawk goes past.
Goldfinch in the garden: a coneflower stem breaks under his weight and he moves to another, probing the dark centers for a hint of seed.
A pair of bindweed trumpets side-by-side. Nearby, an Oswego tea plant wrapped in webbing swarms with baby spiders no bigger than asterisks.
A convocation of robins in the tulip tree at the edge of the woods, like pot-bellied businessmen with their self-important tut-tut-tuts.
Fire sirens in the valley. On a beebalm stem, right under the scarlet inflorescence, a beard of spittlebug froth catches the sun.
Strange morning: first a 20-MPH gust of wind out of a clear sky whips the treetops, then the dead cherry beside the porch fills with birds.
A noisy exchange of crow news sets off a pair of yellow-billed cuckoos. A juvenile black bear ambles down the road and into the woods.
Fog in the treetops, lit up by the sun. Wingbeats of a large bird. The distant chirping of quarry trucks in reverse, one high, one low.
Two half-grown rabbits grazing side-by-side on sallow, middle-of-the-road grass dash off in opposite directions. A daylily’s orange cone.
Spots of red in the garden: old leaves on the evening primroses, new leaves on the witch hazel, which seems to be having a prolonged spring.
Overcast and cool. A groundhog stops at the bend of the road, rears up like a prairie dog and freezes. Only its dark eyes continue to move.