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.
bindweed
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.
A scattering of white in my overgrown garden: soapwort, bindweed, fleabane, snakeroot. The sky brightens. A towhee calls from the lilac.
A pair of bindweed trumpets side-by-side. Nearby, an Oswego tea plant wrapped in webbing swarms with baby spiders no bigger than asterisks.
Somewhere above the clouds, a military jet heads north: a gray sound on a gray day. In the newly bare lilac, yellow wires of bindweed.
Would morning glories keep blooming all summer as the wild bindweed does? This morning, four new horns fill with tree-cricket trills.