Another cool morning. Autumn’s in the air, I say to myself, but it’s really just a cricket chirping in the corner of the garden.
crickets
June 17, 2011
At 8:47, the sun puts in its first appearance. The cricket in my garden—the only weather forecast I follow—doesn’t miss a beat.
October 3, 2010
At 42 degrees Fahrenheit, only one cricket calls from the vicinity of the springhouse, a low, hollow creaking like a prolonged death rattle.
September 8, 2010
Orion gets one leg above the trees before fading into the dawn. Inside, I rescue the cricket from a spider, put him out for the fourth time.
August 29, 2010
As the plane fades in the distance, they return: a towhee, two lethargic vireos, a chipmunk’s water-drip-steady clucks, the garden cricket.
August 14, 2010
Would morning glories keep blooming all summer as the wild bindweed does? This morning, four new horns fill with tree-cricket trills.
July 30, 2010
At last the garden cricket has a rival. They creak slowly back and forth. I scan the western sky for what’s left of last night’s moon.
July 6, 2010
One tulip tree limb is a-quiver: a pair of squirrels nibble on each other’s fur. Love or parasites? A cricket calls from under the bergamot.
September 14, 2009
Sitting under the portico while the paint dries on the porch. The crickets sound different here. A phoebe calls for the first time in weeks.
September 1, 2009
Cold and clear, but one cricket still manages a slow creak. A nuthatch calls heh-heh-heh — so I didn’t dream that cackle outside my window!
August 20, 2009
The fog reveals as much as it hides. Who knew the trees held so many spiderwebs? The birds are mostly quiet now; it’s cricket spring.
August 13, 2009
Overcast and cool. Two birds of indeterminate species trade high-pitched chirps in the treetops, continuing for hours. A few crickets.
August 5, 2009
Everywhere a house wren burbles you can build a window; everywhere a tree cricket trills you can build a memorial to last night’s moon.
September 18, 2008
In the pre-dawn dark, a patch of moonlight appears for a few seconds on the end of the porch. A cricket’s one-string fiddle, slow and thin.