So many chipmunks are racing about at the woods’ edge that after watching them for a while, I begin to feel itchy. A crow clears its throat.
crows
January 2, 2017
Fog gives back to the forest those soft edges and sense of distance that were lost when the leaves came down. Rain taps on the roof. A crow.
December 24, 2016
Drizzle on snow—a phrase that, moved to the kitchen, sounds almost enticing. Christmas has come early for a crow excited about the compost.
December 13, 2016
I watch a squirrel diligently disinterring a walnut from the frozen earth and think, no. I identify with the crow, its harsh denunciations.
December 4, 2016
A distant gunshot. A crow. The rumble of a freight train. On a gray day without shadows, any dark thing reminds us of the sun.
December 2, 2016
Cold and overcast with a lighter gray patch where the sun might be. The nasal calls of a nuthatch. A distant mob of crows.
November 29, 2016
A huge number of crows hanging out in the treetops at the woods’ edge—not mobbing anything, just being crows, arguing, sharing, kvetching.
November 26, 2016
Two crows tail a small hawk on a high-speed chase through the trees, twisting and turning. It loses them and climbs into the clouds.
November 15, 2016
In the midst of all this gray, the hulking green lilac—summer’s unfinished business. A crow crosses the sun, leaving a trail of complaints.
November 14, 2016
Alarm calls of jays give way to crows; the crows to a raven. With each corvid, the cry comes from higher in the blue—and closer to the bone.
October 16, 2016
Scattered crow caws coalesce into a flash mob filled with rage, but dissipate in less than a minute. High up in the clouds, a raven croaks.
June 24, 2016
The leaves on one branch of the big maple have turned yellow. The shrill cries of the resident crows driving an invader off the mountain.
May 4, 2016
Two crows fly past, staying just inside the woods’ edge. Over the several voices of the creek, a cerulean warbler’s ascending, buzzy trill.
April 30, 2016
Thin fog. Two wood thrushes skulk around the edge of the yard. A crow finds something hiding in the pines and tries to raise an alarm.