glowworms

Sunday September 17, 2017

Dave Bonta September 17, 2017 1

Out early, I listen to barred owls, watch the pulsing light of a glowworm crossing the walk like a satellite on an exceptionally low orbit.

Dave Bonta October 1, 2014

Up before dawn. A few stars glimmer through the fog. Deep in the grass, the pale lights of glowworms brightening and dimming.

Falling snow infiltrated by sleet—that clicking like a room full of typists. A jay has sole custody of the color blue—his two-note solo. …

The sun stretches one stripe of dazzle across the frosted yard. A chickadee hangs from a goldenrod seed head, fossicking through the fluff. …

In the midst of all this gray, the hulking green lilac—summer's unfinished business. A crow crosses the sun, leaving a trail of complaints. …

In the Sunday morning silence, I can hear the wind reshuffling fallen leaves half-way up the ridge and the long sighs of the pines. …

Cold and still. Even with no snow, the light is already wintry: low-angled, flooding the open woods, illuminating the wings of small birds. …

The last patch of snow in the yard has shrunk to half the size of a handkerchief. Three chickadees explore the woods' edge, comparing notes. …

The soft-edged shadows glimmer with frost; the stripes of dim sunlight glisten. Only the Carolina wren insists on clarity, clarity, clarity. …

Muddy footprints cross the porch and stop in front of my chair. Their probable owner crouches nearby in the rain like an evicted squatter. …

A juvenile buck chases a much larger doe through the laurel, knobs for antlers and his grunts still half-bleat. The damp woods glistening. …

After last night's rain, everything glistens but the four gray forms of deer beneath the lilac, their thin clouds of breath. …

I sit in the dark listening to the downpour, trying to pick out all the different instruments: roof, road, weeds, trees, leaf litter, creek. …

Wind and rain. On the ornamental cherry tree beside the porch, fat drops dangle from the bare spots between yellow-orange leaves. …