Gray rain ripples the air—November’s fur blurring the last splashes of bright October: salmon-colored cherry leaves, a vivid limb of maple.
black cherry
June 13, 2015
Overcast and cool. It takes me a while to notice that a cherry tree has fallen into the meadow 50 feet away, half-buried in the tall weeds.
May 3, 2015
The woods’ edge is a collage of pastels: just-opened leaves, catkins, maple keys. The old cherry stump chirps like a phone: baby bluebirds.
May 4, 2014
This spring is like a familiar symphony slowed way down. Grace notes become held notes: birch catkins. Bud-burst in the black cherry trees.
January 17, 2014
The sun fades from blaze to smolder to smear. I notice a bent-down cherry limb that looks like a dancer—something I won’t be able to un-see.
May 23, 2013
Rain in the wee hours has left the lilac with leaves bent over, showing their pale backs. Above, the white missiles of black cherry blooms.
May 18, 2013
The new black cherry leaves, unmarred by any insect, are showing their pale backs to the sky, like hatchling fish unsure of how to swim.
April 29, 2013
A squirrel climbs to the top of a black cherry tree, samples a budding leaf and dashes back down. The aspens wear a new, gray-green fur.
August 9, 2012
The first blooming tall goldenrod glows yellow at the woods’ edge. In a cherry tree, a fall webworm tent enshrouds a garland of dead leaves.
September 24, 2011
Rusty things: the wail of a cat in heat, a squirrel’s slow scold, the cry of a jay, and the black cherry leaves fading to a coppery red.
May 27, 2011
Random lilac, red maple and black cherry leaves have flipped over, exposing their pale undersides—evidence of a downpour in the wee hours.
July 18, 2010
A tiger swallowtail is laying eggs on the lilac and black cherry, dabbing each leaf with the tip of her abdomen, wings fighting the breeze.
August 20, 2008
In the wild black cherry limb that hangs over the entrance to the trail up the ridge, red clumps of stems, a squirrel getting its breakfast.