When the fog lifts, the sun makes its nest in the treetops. I sit with a newspaper folded on my knee, listening to a chipmunk’s metronome.
October 18, 2010
Widely scattered drops of rain—a rustle twice as loud as it would’ve been a month ago. Blue jays yell back and forth about some new find.
October 17, 2010
One gusty day, and the forest is full of new sounds: here a squeak, there a moan, like an orchestra of broken instruments tuning up.
October 16, 2010
Through a new hole in the forest, the sun imparts a half-minute nimbus to a tree trunk on the crest of the ridge. Clouds race by.
October 15, 2010
Just as the sun strikes my face, in the corner of my eye a hawk sweeps into the woods. She ghosts past, flared tail orange among the leaves.
October 14, 2010
The black locusts are beginning to yellow as the black birches beside them deepen to orange, alive with kinglets and glowing in the rain.
October 13, 2010
I stroll down into the yard to examine grass blades outlined by the first, patchy frost, accompanied by my coffee’s pillar of steam.
October 12, 2010
Two titmice tumble off a branch, claws briefly locked, provoking rebukes from a chorus of chickadees. A breeze fails to disperse the fog.
October 11, 2010
Almost Cartesian, this grid of clouds: contrails at varying stages of decay. From up in the woods, wingbeats of some large bird.
October 10, 2010
The birches are astir with birds: migrant warblers, chickadees, and a kinglet darting from leaf to leaf, gold crown flashing among the gold.
October 9, 2010
Chipmunks cluck—a hillside of leaky faucets. Over by the powerline, a crow is venting what sounds like frustration: a hollow ach ach ach.
October 8, 2010
Cold as it is, the birds seem to avoid the sun. In one shadow, a wren putt-putts. In another, a song sparrow shakes water from his wings.
October 7, 2010
A black-throated blue warbler alights in the dead cherry. I follow it to the spicebush, where yellow-throated vireos sing bright red notes.
October 6, 2010
Sparrows and finches chitter in the half-light. A song sparrow sings beside the springhouse, a sound I haven’t heard here in over a year.