The urgent grunts of a buck in rut chasing two does through the laurel, their movements easy to follow now that the trees are nearly bare.
November 9, 2008
Cold and overcast. Four silent bluebirds drop into the spicebush in my herb garden and begin gobbling the blood-red drupes, stones and all.
November 8, 2008
A hard rain overnight has reduced the forest canopy to tatters. Where cherry leaves had hung, nothing but beads of water reflecting the sky.
November 7, 2008
November 6, 2008
The wind is out of the east, bringing routine news of violence to the pitted earth. A bare birch at the woods’ edge fills up with finches.
November 5, 2008
November 4, 2008
Rounding the corner of the house, I spot a reflection in my living room window and stop short: leaves of all colors. The change is upon us.
November 3, 2008
The cherry tree beside my porch is at its fragile peak of color, bright orange leaves fluttering loose from a clusterfuck of diseased limbs.
November 2, 2008
Two squirrels meet nose-to-nose on a maple trunk and grapple gently, gray against the gray bark. They freeze for a second and almost vanish.
November 1, 2008
Mid-morning, and a weak sun sets the oaks aglow—orange, burgundy. Two archery hunters rustle past, incongruous in their green camouflage.
October 31, 2008
6:20 a.m. All through the newly bare branches of the black walnut tree beside the driveway, the stars glitter, too high for any squirrel.
October 30, 2008
Another thin fur of snow on the ground. The four aspens in the corner of the field shiver as the sunlight floods their yellow crowns.
October 29, 2008
The first snow of the season blows sideways through the thinning woods. All the roofs are white, white—sudden colonies of the sky.
October 28, 2008
The French lilac, unseasonably green; Japanese barberries flaunting too-numerous fruit; me with my steaming Ethiopian brew, rain in my face.