Gnats backlit by the sun fly back and forth, reversing direction without slowing down even the slightest. The kak-kak-kak of a Cooper’s hawk.
gnats
Monday April 05, 2021
Lust is in the air: a turkey gobbling in the field, a Cooper’s hawk calling in the woods, and right in front of me, a sunlit cloud of lekking gnats.
Thursday October 22, 2020
Clear and still. The sun clearing the ridgetop blazes through a new hole in the wall of leaves, lighting up a column of pogoing gnats.
Thursday March 28, 2019
Gnats are flying, and I think about the first insects, 340 million years before flowers—an alien earth preserved in these very hills.
Thursday September 28, 2017
The air’s so clear I can see gnats 100 feet away—bright motes wandering among the trees. Dead leaves crowd together at the end of the porch.
Sunday April 09, 2017
Bright and still. Two dozen gnats form a cloud of Brownian motion, rising and falling above a fixed point—some stone or blade of grass.
Wednesday March 08, 2017
Filmy-winged gnats are blown past the porch, pale as snowflakes in the strong sun. Overhead, the fierce cries of ravens playing in the wind.
Monday September 19, 2016
A new bloom of gnats—I saw them swarming by the back door—and the yard is full of fall warblers, foraging with the chickadees and titmice.
Wednesday September 14, 2016
When I finally pay attention, what do I see? Just gnats orbiting an apparently arbitrary point in the middle of the yard. Just their wings.
Wednesday July 20, 2016
High in the trees, a small cloud of gnats yoyoing up and down, backlit by the sun, while an itch grows on my hand where a mosquito drills.
Monday July 13, 2015
Backlit by the sun against the dark woods, a swarm of lekking gnats, their Brownian motion now faster, now slower. An annual cicada’s whine.
Monday May 25, 2015
A warm morning. The yard is filled with the bright wings of insects drifting up and down, back and forth against the dark woods.
Friday September 05, 2014
It’s hot. At last the annual cicadas sound fully charged. The air is alive with tiny insects in non-intersecting orbits back-lit by the sun.
Tuesday June 04, 2013
Bright sun, sharp-edged shadows and a breeze with teeth. Still, the catbird warbles jazz, and small insects drift on glistening wings.