The wind is busy dismantling its favorite instrument. I can now see clear to the ridgetop through the thinning trees—the sky beyond.
fall foliage
10/14/2011
Rain. And in the woods, a continual downward flight of leaves, meandering from side to side like all lost things. The rain falls harder.
10/12/2011
White-throated sparrows in the meadow—their quavery notes. Behind the curtain of gold leaves, a split-second glimpse of a hawk’s wing.
10/11/2011
Mist and quarry noise. In my four-day absence, green has drained from the trees, and the aliens in my yard have put up three blue flowers.
10/2/2011
Colored leaves turn backwards in the cold wind—still the same pale green. A pileated woodpecker’s distant chant.
9/26/2011
Overcast. The softly glowing reds and yellows, the hum of crickets, even the normally annoying call of a towhee all inspire nostalgia.
9/13/2011
As so often in fall, a clear morning sky means not clarity but inversion—the bellowing of trucks. A yellow leaf lands with a soft click.
11/10/2009
After a warm night, half the lilac’s leaves are brown and curling. What is it about warmth this time of year that makes it so debilitating?
10/26/2009
Most of the edge and understory trees are bare now, and I can see under the oak canopy clear to the crest of the ridge and the sky beyond.
10/24/2009
The low clouds are a patchwork of light and dark; the oaks change from brown to burgundy in the space of a minute. A bright curtain of rain.
10/22/2009
The crown of an oak that was green on Tuesday now glows orange in the sun. Every breeze shakes a fleet of helicopters out of the tulip tree.
10/13/2009
Rising late, I listen to loggers’ chainsaws from over the ridge to the west. The trees are almost at their peak of color. A distant crash.
10/11/2009
Cold and clear. Stripes of sunlight don’t distinguish between the gold on the trees and the gold already on the ground: everything glows.
10/10/2009
Coming back from the Adirondacks, I find a different mountain: much redder and yellower than it was a week ago, and much less mountainous.