An eight-point buck struts through the neck-high meadow, stirring up sparrows and goldenrod fluff, lifting his tail to shit while he walks.
goldenrod
Brief shower from a blue sky; a rumble of thunder. Goldenrod by the woods’ edge is turning yellow for the second time with fallen leaves.
Rain starts almost imperceptibly, thickening from shimmer to mist to curtain. Early goldenrod and white snakeroot are both fading to brown.
From the rummaging of some small bird of passage, a shower of yellow walnut leaves into the yellow yard, the tall Solidago. A catbird mews.
A squirrel emerges from the springhouse’s tiny attic vent and slides head-first toward the ground. A patch of sun shimmers in the goldenrod.
A yellow mayfly struggles to cross the desert of my porch floor. I glance over at the streambank: yellow coneflowers, the first goldenrod.
Goldenrod in front of the porch now overtops the floor, like the crest of a green wave rolling in from the yard. I prop my feet on the rail.
Two white-tailed deer leap through the dried goldenrod and asters beyond the springhouse, surfacing, diving—dolphins in a brown sea.
Gold is spreading from the goldenrod up into the trees, here and there: walnut, elm, birch. A jay dives into the lilac: blue from the sky.
Where daffodils bloomed in April, goldenrod sways—a more worldly yellow. The distant hurricane makes a roosting monarch flap its wings.
The air is still and quiet. In the springhouse meadow, the ears of a doe appear above the goldenrod, pivoting like leaves in a private wind.
Sunrise comes with a soundtrack of grinding and beeping from the quarry to our east. Right below the railing, goldenrod bobs: a winter wren.
50°F. A daddylonglegs descends a goldenrod stem, slow as the minute hand on a clock. A catbird bursts from the lilac, crackling with alarm.