Overcast and blustery. A tiny caterpillar abseiling down from the elder tree has changed its mind and is slowly, flailingly going back up.
caterpillars
Saturday June 18, 2016
Strands of caterpillar silk float on the breeze, appearing and disappearing as they pass through sunbeams. Ravens’ falsetto alarm calls.
Wednesday October 21, 2015
The yelling of a crow unable to raise a mob. Sun glints on caterpillar silk strung like abandoned bunting among bare walnut-tree branches.
Sunday August 30, 2015
Wasps wallow through mounds of snakeroot flowers. At the woods’ edge, a yellow leaf trapped by a caterpillar thread never stops twirling.
Tuesday October 07, 2014
Cloudy and cold. A caterpillar climbs my leg, its brown form so extravagantly furred it resembles a miniature, misplaced fashion accessory.
Monday June 03, 2013
While the male chickadee calls from the end of a walnut branch, his mate combs the leaves for caterpillars, hovering, hanging upside-down.
Tuesday April 03, 2012
An old strand of caterpillar silk at the wood’s edge shimmers in the sun. A crow keeps saying something urgent in four syllables.
Wednesday November 09, 2011
Another cloudless morning. Sunlight glints on abandoned spider and caterpillar silk in every tree and between them—a threadbare garment.
Monday August 24, 2009
A bristly white caterpillar on the freshly painted white porch railing. The sky too is white, and the lawn with its banks of snakeroot.