Patches of frost in the yard. The old lilac at the woods’ edge has chosen this time to partially re-leaf after the summer’s drought: half-sized, bright green leaves against the thinning trees.
In the frosty stillness, I watch moonlight disappear into dawnlight. Half an hour before sunrise, an acorn falls with a thud and all the sparrows begin twittering.
Dawn light with sparrow song. The full moon of my insomnia still glows above the western ridge as blood dries on the mousetrap under the stairs.
Each dawn this time of year brings revelation: the sky behind the ridgetop trees emerging piecemeal like a puzzle. And between the sun and the clouds there’s a new, transitional state: a crowd of yellow.
Overcast and gloomy. A single scarlet bough glows like a stoplight in the dark woods. The distant drumming of a pileated woodpecker.
Three deer are running back and forth through the woods: flashes of white tails, the thunder of hooves. A small black birch nearly bare of leaves is a-flutter with kinglets.
Out before dawn. The trees rock and talk in loud whispers. Orion appears through a hole in the clouds, dark armor glittering.
Cloudy at sunrise except just above the eastern horizon: the western ridge turns red, then slowly fades. Inversion makes the interstate sound much too close.
Partly cloudy and almost warm. The jays are having heated conferences overhead, with strangled cries and jeers. A few more leaves catch rides on a passing breeze.
Clear and still at sunrise, with a slightly harder light frost than yesterday. A crow yelling over the compost. A white-throated sparrow’s thin song.
Clear and cold, with a faint patch of frost on the barn roof. Winged tulip tree seeds litter the porch. A red-bellied woodpecker tuts from the top of a tall locust.
Clear and still cold at mid-morning. Sunlight flashes through thinning leaves shuffled by the wind, the sun’s own color more a yell than a yellow.
Clear and cold. The red squirrel I’ve been hearing scold finally appears, racing up a bare walnut tree just as a deer hunter drags the first kill of the season out of the woods.
Breezy and cool at dawn. Migrants trade notes as they explore the forest edge: towhee, phoebe, thrush. A lost passenger jet comes roaring overhead.