Light snow falling at sunrise—enough to obscure the identity of a line of tracks emerging from under the house. In the patch of dead bracken, one frond sways gently on its stalk.
bracken
An autumnal sunrise heralded by crickets. I search the bracken patch for any two fronds in the same shade of green, yellow, or brown.
From fresh green to dark green to yellow and brown, the bracken is in a perpetual state of resurrection. Two fawns rush past, tormented by flies.
Birds still singing in a downpour: scarlet tanager, common yellowthroat, Acadian flycatcher, great-crested flycatcher… Fronds of bracken tremble as if readying for flight.
A few clouds at sunrise. Goldfinches chatter over the rap battles of ovenbirds and vireos. Bracken leaves are still opening in the yard—feathers on feathers.
An autumnal sunrise, with crisp air and the creek full of voices, bracken browning in the yard, and the walnut leaves experimenting with carotenoids.
Crystal-clear and cold. A mourning dove calls from the woods’ edge. A small patch of sun appears among the bracken, making a drought-struck frond twice as yellow.
Here and there, the bracken in my yard is beginning to turn yellow. A hummingbird buzzes past, pausing to inspect several garlic heads.
Another brief shower as the sun almost breaks through. A wood pewee answers his own question. I count the yellowing bracken fronds in my yard.
Raininess without rain. The peonies remain unbowed. Half-grown bracken fronds in my thin-soiled yard are already turning yellow.
Humid but blessedly cool; the air’s alive with birdsong and slow-moving insects. Rabbits chase and graze among half-grown bracken.
Drizzle thickening now and then into proper rain. The bracken in my yard glows in all the colors of decline and fall.
In the flat light of a cloudy morning, bracken fronds glow like the sun-bleached rib cages of seraphim—skeletons gone rococo.
Writing on the porch for a while, I am confronted, every time I look up, by three bracken fronds in my yard that have already turned yellow, like needlessly complex skeletons of fish.