Rain. A groundhog rummages loudly under the porch. A bumblebee moves to the bright side of a porch column to dry her wings.
bumblebees
6/24/2020
After days of humidity, a dry high. A bumblebee lands on the sunny side of a porch column and cleans her antennae.
7/13/2016
Catbird caterwauling by the cattails. Bumblebee buzzing in the bergamot. A gray fly walks the gray band of my sandal. The sun comes out.
5/25/2016
Warm and hazy. The yard buzzes with native bees pollinating the alien, invasive myrtle. Off in the woods, the glint of old glass.
7/23/2015
Deep blue sky, with the sun gilding the treetops. A bumblebee circles the bergamot patch, her small engine running fine despite the cold.
7/11/2015
The air becomes clearer as I drink my coffee, the shadows deeper. A bumblebee methodically circles the purple mop-heads of bergamot.
9/16/2014
Another cold morning: just one bee for all this goldenrod. The neighbors’ rooster like some teenage band member practicing for a pep rally.
8/29/2014
In the shadows of the trees, the grass bent low by dew. From the sunlit meadow, the drone of cold-hardy bumblebees servicing the goldenrod.
6/5/2013
Shadows of vultures slip through the trees. A bumblebee lands on a porch post and grooms her thorax and mouthparts with her four front legs.
4/19/2013
The soft colors of trees just coming into blossom: birch, elm, shadbush. The bright yellow on yellow of a bumblebee visiting the daffodils.
4/8/2012
Red maple limbs laden with keys tremble from a pell-mell squirrel. I hear tapping on the storm door, open it and a bee flies out.
9/14/2011
Many of the asters that shut their purple lashes for the night have yet to open, frustrating a honeybee. A squat native bee pushes right in.
4/6/2010
Bumblebees joust, and a sun-drugged honeybee wanders the folds of my jeans. Spring’s parade devolves into a mob, everything blooming at once.
7/30/2008
A bumblebee working the bergamot clambers over a green shield bug that’s rooted to its straw, a tiny leaf swelling on a sap-filled stem.