Another gray morning. High against the clouds, a pair of ravens exchange triple croaks. The chipmunk in the garden scratches behind one ear.
September 22, 2008
Equinox. A flat-white sky, and for the first time I notice two maple trees at the woods’ edge already half infiltrated by orange, by red.
September 21, 2008
In the pre-dawn, Sunday-morning silence, the distant bellowing of a cow. A half moon glows through the fog — a thin milk.
September 20, 2008
A gray, cold morning. The rusty-hinge scolding of a squirrel multiplies and turns into a flock of grackles, pivoting on its thousand wings.
September 19, 2008
Gold is spreading from the goldenrod up into the trees, here and there: walnut, elm, birch. A jay dives into the lilac: blue from the sky.
September 18, 2008
In the pre-dawn dark, a patch of moonlight appears for a few seconds on the end of the porch. A cricket’s one-string fiddle, slow and thin.
September 17, 2008
Clear, cold, the kind of morning where you can hear for miles, noisy with cars, trucks, trains, jets, and chipmunks standing their ground.
September 16, 2008
Up too early, I sit out front and watch the full moon moving in and out of thin clouds: moments of clarity interspersed with bleariness.
September 15, 2008
Where daffodils bloomed in April, goldenrod sways—a more worldly yellow. The distant hurricane makes a roosting monarch flap its wings.
September 14, 2008
Pulling rampant stiltgrass out of the garden next to the porch to create a spot for a potted yellow mum, I uncover the jawbone of a horse.
September 13, 2008
If this were my first dawn here, I might startle at the white faces in the darkness: snakeroot. The familiar cries of a bird I cannot name.
September 12, 2008
A warm night. With no inversion layer, dawn comes quietly except for the ever-present crickets. A patter of rain approaches and retreats.
September 11, 2008
5:30. The black cat is only distinguishable by its movement up the driveway, and only if I focus a little to the side. The sound of engines.
September 10, 2008
Clear, cold. The flare of a satellite is an omen: the sun will rise. CERN has so far failed to birth a black hole. Random chirps.