Oak leaves that turned brown just a few days ago already rattle instead of rustling. A hunter in gray camouflage emerges from the woods.
fall foliage
November 2, 2018
A sparrow hawk makes two small, fast circles over the ridge, just like a real hawk. A barberry bush has this year’s only flaming foliage.
October 27, 2018
Rain again. This is the dreariest, drabbest autumn I’ve ever seen—except for the moss and tree-bark lichens, which have never been brighter.
October 16, 2018
No frost yet, but the woods’ edge is riddled with fresh chinks of sky. The squeaky rattle of a winter wren as it pops out of the weeds.
October 10, 2018
Endlessly flitting about the same patch of sun up in the woods, what looks like an enchanted moth must be a leaf caught by caterpillar silk.
December 3, 2017
The forest is still a-flicker with falling leaves—astonishing this late in the year. Distant church bells. A chipmunk’s agitated ticking.
October 25, 2017
White sky, bright leaves, shivering on the branch as if in ecstasy. The sine wave of a gray squirrel’s tail and body bounding up the road.
October 23, 2017
Brighter color between the trees: sunrise. Gray as their trunks: a doe and her grown fawns. From down hollow, a screech owl’s trill.
October 15, 2017
Sunlight for the first time in days, flooding through new holes in the forest canopy. The wistful theme song of a white-throated sparrow.
October 13, 2017
Cold and gloomy despite the bright leaves; even the wren sounds querulous. When I look again, the unmoving fly is gone from the wall.
October 12, 2017
Gold on gold: a kinglet’s crest among the birch leaves. Rust on rust: a chipmunk’s fur among rain-flattened tangles of stiltgrass.
October 11, 2017
Just past daybreak it begins to rain and the forest is full of falling leaves—a slow, steady flutter of summer yellow into the drab shadows.
October 8, 2017
The goldenrod is all brown, but each breeze sprinkles it with yellow from the woods. The last hornet returns to her ghost town of a nest.
September 30, 2017
Cloudy and cold. Gusts of wind try on bespoke garments of yellow leaves. The hornets are still flying, tough as the nails in their abdomens.