Cold and clear, with dew dripping from the sun-struck roof. The dying lilac is re-greening with bindweed: ladders of heart-shaped leaves. In the woods, between sunbeams, a pewee’s bent note.
bindweed
Overcast and cool. The aspen sapling in my yard is wound around with bindweed, I notice, and I spend a few minutes removing it—unwinding, as it were. The leaves tremble as only an aspen can do.
Breezy and cool, with enough high-altitude murk to keep the sun at half strength. A firefly circles the arm of my chair. Two more bindweed blossoms have opened above yesterday’s, which hangs limp as an empty balloon.
A white bindweed flower has opened in the yard—morning glory enough for a sky more white than blue. Wild garlic heads have almost all straightened up and begun to split open.
Thin but steady rain. A moth flutters up under my end-table to roost. At the woods’ edge, the bindweed has gotten to the top of its dead lilac stem, and extends a long feeler toward the lowest overhanging limb that sways just out of reach.
Humid and cool, with last night’s rain still dripping from the trees. A lilac limb dead since last summer is greening up with bindweed. The new Carolina wren tries a dozen different variations on his teakettle theme, but so far no female has materialized.
Overcast and quiet. A doe and two fawns melt into the woods when I come out. In the meadow, this morning’s bindweed trumpets are already vibrating with bumblebees.
Cool and clear. A pair of bindweed blossoms have opened on a fence post like microwave transmitters. A tiny patch of fog shelters from the sun in the lowest part of the meadow.
Hazy but not yet hot. Hummingbirds circle the soapwort patch, as if following the red threads of bindweed.
A catbird looks for worms in the herb garden. The first bindweed trumpets blare their silent music into a cloudless sky.
Hot and humid. A silver-spotted skipper draws my eye to a bindweed trumpet, its silent hosannas seemingly aimed at the ancient rose bush.
Overcast and cool. In the garden, the bindweed has yet to flower, but its leaves are busy gathering holes.
A bindweed flower is open in the garden—a white blunderbuss pointed, like the dog’s inquisitive snout, at the foggy woods.
A steady shimmer of rain. Wet tree trunks glow gray-green with lichen, and the lilac looks festive with its orange strings of dead bindweed.