The fluting of geese from somewhere above the clouds. A bowhunter dressed in green camouflage walks out of the autumn woods.
fall foliage
October 3, 2013
Every morning more shards of ridge-top sky are visible through the trees. In the black birch’s yellow crown, yellow-rumped warblers.
October 1, 2013
With every gust of wind, a mob of yellow leaves comes swirling out over the meadow. From just inside the woods’ edge, the crash of a limb.
September 29, 2013
Silent as a thief, this sun climbing through the trees. The fog lifted an hour ago, but steam still rises from the yellow leaves.
September 3, 2013
A wood pewee calls from the edge of the meadow. The air has turned autumnal. The sun comes out and doubles the number of yellow leaves.
October 25, 2012
The soft clatter of oak leaves on their way to the ground. Dull thumps as a pileated woodpecker excavates a hole, crest like a flaming axe.
October 22, 2012
A breeze carries leaves from the dark woods to spiral down into the sunlit yard. A deer feeds on the lilac—the only remaining greenery.
October 13, 2012
The yard is white with the first frost, prostrate myrtle and stiltgrass leaves outlined as if in chalk. Leaves spiral down in the still air.
October 9, 2012
Most of the maples have dropped their leaves since I was last on the porch, but the towhee’s breast still flickers rust-red in the lilac.
September 30, 2012
Sunlight filtered through thin clouds—it’s almost spring-like, apart from the yellow leaves, the goldenrod, a white-throated sparrow’s song.
September 23, 2012
The trees at the edge of the woods are now an almost even mix of green and yellow leaves—until the sun comes out and turns them all to gold.
October 30, 2011
Clumps of snow still dot the crowns of oaks—small clouds, a rain of angelic hats. Flaming orange and red leaves rattle in the wind.
October 15, 2011
The wind is busy dismantling its favorite instrument. I can now see clear to the ridgetop through the thinning trees—the sky beyond.
October 14, 2011
Rain. And in the woods, a continual downward flight of leaves, meandering from side to side like all lost things. The rain falls harder.