Cool and still with thin clouds. On the road-bank, a gray squirrel noses about in the leaves, as if searching its memory.
gray squirrel
7/19/2024
Clear and still, except for the distant beeping of quarry trucks. A common yellowthroat darts through the lilac bush, foraging for breakfast. A gray squirrel sounds the hawk alarm.
7/16/2024
Sunlight shimmers on the fur of a squirrel chiseling the shell of a disinterred nut, the morning coolness slowly giving way to heat.
6/7/2024
A commotion of gray squirrels in the spicebush next to the springhouse, where one seems to be in estrus-induced discomfort, and five others are there to help out.
6/3/2024
Cool and overcast, without a breath of wind. A branch breaks under the weight of a squirrel, who leaps to safety. A cerulean warbler and a field sparrow trade licks.
5/29/2024
High drama in the trees behind the springhouse, where a red squirrel contends with the local grays. A jet with no contrail slips like a needle through the blue, its roar trailing far behind.
5/19/2024
Overcast and cool. A pair of love-struck squirrels appear to have designs on my house, climbing the red cedar, peering in the windows.
3/23/2024
Rain and fog. The birds call one at a time, as if auditioning. A sodden squirrel, grayer than gray, trots across the gray gravel road.
3/20/2024
Heavily overcast at mid-morning. I watch a squirrel surveying the yard from atop a stump, then loping over and retrieving a husked walnut from a tuft of grass.
2/11/2024
Very still under a bone-white sky. A Carolina wren rummages under the house. In the treetops a gray squirrel takes an improbable leap.
1/23/2024
As below, so above, the trees marooned in a flat whiteness no less absolute than that of a blank page, albeit one navigated by squirrels.
1/18/2024
A gray squirrel on a gray morning, having tunneled through snow and frozen earth to disinter a black walnut, squats on a dead limb of a dead maple, gnawing at the rock-hard shell.
1/8/2024
A gray squirrel in heat waits for her escort to chase off a rival suitor before resuming their game of follow-the-leader, now much more slowly, across the crusted snow.
1/5/2024
One last glimpse of the crescent moon before it’s swallowed by clouds. The typewriter sound of squirrel claws on bark, chasing. It’s cold.