When I turn to go in, I’m struck by the cherry tree’s shadow, how the sun divided by the forest canopy multiplies each branch by three.
One grown fawn attempts to nurse; the other runs into the woods, ducking its head as if pursued by some horsefly impervious to the cold.
A finger of sun infiltrates the foxtail millet, heads turned every direction but up. Three chickadees forage in the cherry, comparing notes.
Two squirrels from the gray woods drop into the lilac and leap from branch to branch, disappearing for long moments into its freakish green.
Bright and cold. A blue jay practices its red-tailed hawk scream at the top of a scarlet oak, half the leaves still there and gleaming.
The doe’s gray coat blends into the November woods, her two grown fawns still brown. They nuzzle through the leaf duff, feasting on acorns.
Almost light, and a screech owl still calls from down in the hollow—that sepulchral whinny. One croak of a crow stops it cold.
The wind rustles in the crown of one red oak; all the others are still. A train whistle. The light patches in the clouds fade to blue.
Rain and fog. A squirrel strips water from its head with a lightning-quick motion of its front paws. The dark dead eyestalks of the tansy.
White bars of frost where shadows span the yard. I listen to the roar of the nearby quarry, outpost of a Republican money machine.
Five below zero Celcius at sunrise. A single kinglet flutters in the birch—its whispery chirps. The fourth-quarter moon’s thin grin.
The yard is alive with robins foraging, chasing, tut-tutting, rust-orange breasts the color of the oaks, all aglow in the mid-morning sun.
Below the porch, a dot of pink: a very late dame’s-rocket blooming the day after a hard frost. A brown creeper inspects a small walnut tree.
Now that summer’s past, the cardinal has gone back to harassing her reflection. The frost-whitened myrtle bed. A barberry turned to flame.