The scrabbling of squirrel claws on black locust bark: someone’s in heat. The shadow of a porch column crosses my face: it must be noon.
black locust
Just inside the woods a tall black locust leans at a steep angle, held up only by its neighbors. I remember hearing the crack, but not when.
Rain has erased the snow. High in a black locust, a squirrel is biting off twigs and carrying them into a crotch, building a bed of thorns.
Cold rain thickens into a downpour. A Cooper’s hawk lands in the top of a tall locust and sits preening and shaking, as if taking a shower.
The big windthrown locust tree is nearly invisible in the high weeds. Out back, an old snake skin flutters from the branches of a spicebush.
Cedar waxwings crowd into the tops of the tall locusts, harried by goldfinches. High above, two swifts arc and swoop against the blue.
Two red-bellied woodpeckers locked in combat tumble out of a locust tree in the yard. Later, two squirrels angrily chase up and down it.
A red-bellied woodpecker’s flight like a fast oarsman, far-apart wingbeats propelling it through the blue. It disappears into a tall locust.
Sunlight alternates with wind-blown precipitation half-way between snow and rain. The chirps of a downy woodpecker working a tall locust.
A burst of activity at the top of one of the tall locusts: chickadees scold, a phoebe catches gnats, and other birds sit shining in the sun.
Sunny but cold. One of the tall locust trees in the yard has developed a loud creak. Two field sparrows are calling, but not to each other.
Cold and gray. Two doves sit motionless in a tall locust. A pileated woodpecker skulks through the woods, silent save for its wingbeats.
Leaves still cling to the tall locusts—threadbare coats of gold beneath the fourth-quarter moon, pale as a discarded toenail clipping.
A squirrel explores the woods’ edge, running along the underside of a locust limb, nosing the ground, going to the very top of a dead tree.