Clear and still. I watch the sun inch through the half-turned canopies of the oaks. A chipmunk begins his morning chant.
chipmunks
Wednesday October 12, 2022
Slightly warmer. Alarmed chipmunks go in and out of sync. The slow hegemony of clouds.
Tuesday October 11, 2022
Sun in the treetops and a small flock of migrants just below, catching some breakfast. A chipmunk’s motor slowly runs out of putts.
Monday September 12, 2022
Fog rising into the treetops. The garden chipmunk keeps me company, sitting on the end of the wall, scratching his belly.
Monday September 05, 2022
Rain prolongs the early-morning light till well past 10:00. A chipmunk appears in the garden, bustling among the drenched weeds.
Monday June 13, 2022
An odor from my childhood: the humid oak forest of my grandparents’ South Jersey yard. A chipmunk dashes under my chair.
Sunday May 15, 2022
A Louisiana waterthrush declaims from a walnut tree, bobbing up and down as is its wont. Up in the woods, a chipmunk ticks like a too-fast clock.
Monday February 28, 2022
Deep blue sky. It’s quiet. A chipmunk dashes across the icy snowpack as I catch up on news of the war.
Wednesday February 16, 2022
A clear start to a day due for clouds and warmth. A chipmunk races over the snow, tail like the hand of a timer that just went off.
Wednesday September 29, 2021
Partly sunny and cold. The kak-kak-kak of a Cooper’s hawk up in the woods. Polyrhythms of scolding chipmunks.
Monday June 07, 2021
Gray sky gravid with bad weather. On either side of the road, the tall grass trembles: foraging chipmunks.
Tuesday May 25, 2021
Brightening sky. I watch a chipmunk on the wall beside the porch making her “chuck” call, so loud—using the stone as a resonator.
Friday May 14, 2021
The forest is so green it almost hurts to look at it, and it smells delicious, too: wild azalea’s honeysuckle scent. Two chipmunks’ warring metronomes.
Tuesday November 14, 2017
The sound of chainsaws from over the ridge. A chipmunk races up the big tulip poplar and returns to earth along the first, hung-down limb.