Dawn, and the peepers are still calling. The bridal-wreath bush glows brighter than the thin grin of a moon rising through the trees.
dawn
March 29, 2012
A small cloud has lodged among the trees at the woods’ edge: shadbush in bloom. Dawn leaks through a dozen rifts in the overcast sky.
March 16, 2012
At dawn, scattered drops—a passing shower. Spring peepers in the corner of the field call in spurts, like an engine running out of fuel.
February 22, 2012
Dawn. Three deer become two, become three again. The sound of squirrel teeth on black walnut shell—that harsh madman’s whisper.
February 19, 2012
First light. The silence is broken by a rustle in the leaves, followed a little later by the hollow sound of a creek stone being flipped.
December 30, 2011
A dusting of snow on every branch and twig. In the half-dark, kinglets bob in the top of a black birch—their high, thin calls.
December 21, 2011
A dark dawn. As light grows, the rain falls harder, thundering on the porch roof, drowning out all other sounds but a locomotive’s wail.
November 30, 2011
A rabbit wanders back and forth in the half-light of dawn—a nervous eater, hunched around its hunger. When it freezes, it almost disappears.
November 29, 2011
Dawn light turns everything briefly to gold: house, trees, the three deer that run a short way into the woods and stop, nostrils flaring.
November 27, 2011
Dawn gives a rust-red belly to the clouds. Over the stream, I’m astonished to hear the ethereal notes of a hermit thrush song.
October 16, 2011
At first light, some newly toppled tree creaks in the wind. What I’d taken for the dog statue on the far side of the yard swivels its ears.
October 3, 2011
Dawn. A migrant wood thrush flits from branch to branch along the edge of the woods. In the yard, a grown fawn nuzzles its mother’s neck.
September 15, 2011
Watching night turn to day—a thing that should be gradual, but instead proceeds by small leaps of realization: “It’s lighter now!” Rain.
June 7, 2011
The dawn sky turns salmon. Down by the stream, the hollow cough of a deer. A swig of coffee and I’m off to count birds before the rain.