Clearing enough by 8:00 for the sun to nest in the treetops. Highway noise subsides, giving way to the knocks and clatter of falling walnuts and acorns, the scold-calls of chipmunks, the jeers of jays.
chipmunks
Still overcast, but with a bit of a breeze. From the woods’ edge, the chick-burr call of a scarlet tanager. A chipmunk’s incessant metronome.
Cool with thin clouds. Two wood thrushes fly into the woods, dead grass trailing from the leader’s beak. A chipmunk runs under my chair.
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.
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.
Sun blazing through the trees illuminates lost snowflakes, miles from the nearest cloud. A chipmunk with hibernation insomnia races up the driveway.
Clear and still. I watch the sun inch through the half-turned canopies of the oaks. A chipmunk begins his morning chant.
Slightly warmer. Alarmed chipmunks go in and out of sync. The slow hegemony of clouds.
Sun in the treetops and a small flock of migrants just below, catching some breakfast. A chipmunk’s motor slowly runs out of putts.
Fog rising into the treetops. The garden chipmunk keeps me company, sitting on the end of the wall, scratching his belly.
Rain prolongs the early-morning light till well past 10:00. A chipmunk appears in the garden, bustling among the drenched weeds.
An odor from my childhood: the humid oak forest of my grandparents’ South Jersey yard. A chipmunk dashes under my chair.
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.
Deep blue sky. It’s quiet. A chipmunk dashes across the icy snowpack as I catch up on news of the war.