Sun through thin clouds; a quiet morning. Three chipmunks, one after another, cross the yard and go under my porch. Either someone’s in heat, or they’re plotting to overthrow me.
chipmunks
2/23/2023
Mist rises from yesterday’s half inch of icy snow. A robin briefly joins the dawn chorus. The front-garden chipmunk returns from the woods with bulging cheeks.
2/18/2023
Sun blazing through the trees illuminates lost snowflakes, miles from the nearest cloud. A chipmunk with hibernation insomnia races up the driveway.
10/22/2022
Clear and still. I watch the sun inch through the half-turned canopies of the oaks. A chipmunk begins his morning chant.
10/12/2022
Slightly warmer. Alarmed chipmunks go in and out of sync. The slow hegemony of clouds.
10/11/2022
Sun in the treetops and a small flock of migrants just below, catching some breakfast. A chipmunk’s motor slowly runs out of putts.
9/12/2022
Fog rising into the treetops. The garden chipmunk keeps me company, sitting on the end of the wall, scratching his belly.
9/5/2022
Rain prolongs the early-morning light till well past 10:00. A chipmunk appears in the garden, bustling among the drenched weeds.
6/13/2022
An odor from my childhood: the humid oak forest of my grandparents’ South Jersey yard. A chipmunk dashes under my chair.
5/15/2022
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.
2/28/2022
Deep blue sky. It’s quiet. A chipmunk dashes across the icy snowpack as I catch up on news of the war.
2/16/2022
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.
9/29/2021
Partly sunny and cold. The kak-kak-kak of a Cooper’s hawk up in the woods. Polyrhythms of scolding chipmunks.
6/7/2021
Gray sky gravid with bad weather. On either side of the road, the tall grass trembles: foraging chipmunks.