Overcast and still, with a low rumble of traffic from the east. In the half-light, a deer’s ear pivots among the goldenrod.
dawn
9/21/2023
Dawn: the red thread of a contrail fraying as it fades. Fog rises from the goldenrod, erasing the faint dot that must’ve been Mercury.
9/14/2023
Half an hour before sunrise, the goldenrod is already aglow. Venus and Jupiter fade into a cloudless sky. Towhees begin to tweet.
9/7/2023
Just at the point where the half-moon loses its share of the shadows, a migrant thrush calls from the woods’ edge: a few soft notes, then silence. The sky turns pink.
8/30/2023
The last stars gutter in the dawn light. Down-hollow, a juvenile whippoorwill practices its song—only half there.
8/27/2023
Crystal-clear and still. At first light, the soft calls of wood thrushes, no doubt tired and hungry after their all-night flights. Pale crowds of snakeroot seem to glow.
8/26/2023
A few minutes after six, a whippoorwill calls from just inside the woods. At the very same moment, the first mosquito of the day finds my ear.
8/23/2023
Cold at dawn, with the lightest of breezes bringing sounds from the east—mostly the limestone quarry’s dull roar. A screech owl trills. The clouds go pink.
8/20/2023
Another autumnal dawn. A screech owl trills from just inside the woods. Crows head past en route to an angry mob. The fluting of geese.
8/11/2023
Before the first birds, a thin, gaping moon. A last katydid stopping mid-creak. The whine of tires on the highway over the ridge.
8/6/2023
A mosquito sings her dark need into my ear. Day advances like a slow machine of squeaking towhees and whirring wrens.
7/30/2023
Clear and cool. A migrant wood thrush calls softly at first light. It’s very still. Then the wrens wake up.
6/24/2023
Foggy at dawn for the wood thrush’s solo. The wild garlics are beginning to raise their egret heads.
5/26/2023
Cold and clear 40 minutes before sunrise. A shadow flutters in beside the porch and begins to shriek: whippoorwill. When he finally stops, the meadow is alive with twittering.