gray squirrel – Page 28 – The Morning Porch

June 21, 2009

Dave Bonta June 21, 2009

Up early enough to catch the end of the shortest night of the year, alive with wind and gurgling water, fireflies, a lone spring peeper.

Dave Bonta June 11, 2009

The leaves of a yellow dock plant next to the porch have curled like tongues into makeshift shelters for hundreds of tiny, hungry guests.

Dave Bonta June 3, 2009

Overcast and still. A soft thump up in the woods must be either a body or a piece of tree well into the slow fever of its afterlife.

Dave Bonta May 31, 2009 1

A squirrel running on the roof above my head: the rhythm of hoofbeats in the paintings of horses from when they were still thought to bound.

Dave Bonta May 20, 2009

A new birdsong at sunrise: “Pleased pleased pleased to MEETcha!” Likewise, I mutter, trying to place the name. Ah—chestnut-sided warbler.

Dave Bonta May 11, 2009 1

Squabbling squirrels just in from the edge of the woods are almost invisible among the new leaves, except for a gray tail’s flicker.

Dave Bonta April 27, 2009

An inversion layer brings traffic noise into the dawn chorus. Large gnats land on my arm. A squirrel sits on the head of the concrete dog.

Dave Bonta April 10, 2009

Twenty minutes after the feral cat disappeared under the porch, the squirrel still scolds. Rain is a soft patter of lead shot—or so I wish.

Dave Bonta March 28, 2009

Dark morning. The fox squirrel’s tail flickers orange from the back of the big red maple whose buds have swollen into dime-sized stoplights.

Dave Bonta March 26, 2009

First rainy morning in weeks, but how quickly things turn to rust: rasp of a starling, a red-winged blackbird’s call, a scolding squirrel.

Dave Bonta March 13, 2009

Clear and cold at sunrise. The feral cat slinks across the springhouse meadow. Muffled sounds of a squirrel scolding from inside its drey.

Dave Bonta March 7, 2009

A warm morning—53°F. A Cooper’s hawk calls, a screech owl trills, but the squirrels go on rummaging through the leaf litter. I spy a gnat.

Dave Bonta February 25, 2009

With the sun on my face I turn my eyes into camera lenses, open, shut: half-second negatives of trees, bushes, railing. Remember this.

Dave Bonta February 12, 2009

Rain-dark trunks gyrate in the high winds. Branches rattle and clash. The trees are like sleepwalkers; I watch with my heart in my throat.