A little wood satyr—brown butterfly with yellow-rimmed eyespots—lands on the glass door and pivots at the center of its reflection.
July 15, 2010
Fresh buds have appeared on one of the two wild grape sprigs I planted at the base of the dead cherry. A nuthatch calls in the growing heat.
July 14, 2010
With the power out, my house seems unnaturally quiet compared to the warble and hum of a humid summer morning. A cicada’s buzzer goes off.
July 13, 2010
Tansy blooms beside the porch. Black ants and harvestmen wander the allegedly insecticidal leaves; only the yellow flowers remain untouched.
July 12, 2010
Cloudy and cool. Up to its snout in grass, a deer sneezes. The quiet squeaks of a hummingbird circling the beebalm.
July 11, 2010
On the garlic tops below the porch, the skins are peeling back, burst by the pressure of insurrectionary mobs with wild green hair.
July 10, 2010
A tussock moth caterpillar dangling in mid-air turns pendulum in the breeze, its silk line visible only as a sliding gleam against the blue.
July 9, 2010
Dark burgundy leaves on a dame’s-rocket, browning seedheads of dock, the one yellow bracken—autumn is making inroads despite the heat.
July 8, 2010
The first bindweed flower has opened low to the ground, its white ear-trumpet pointed toward the rising sun. The whine of a cicada.
July 7, 2010
A phoebe’s spiraling dive ends with an audible snap of its bill. A catbird improvises from the lilac, switching branches after each line.
July 6, 2010
One tulip tree limb is a-quiver: a pair of squirrels nibble on each other’s fur. Love or parasites? A cricket calls from under the bergamot.
July 5, 2010
The ornamental cherry’s last leaves are dying. A silent wood thrush watches a tanager so scarlet it throbs in the light-drenched crown.
July 4, 2010
A rustle from the top of a tall locust: two great blue herons jab at the thorny twigs, spread their wings and launch into the bluest sky.
July 3, 2010
A small yellow flower lures me down off the porch to find a new species for the yard: fringed loosestrife. Sounds like a biker-chick brawl.