gray squirrel – Page 29 – The Morning Porch

June 11, 2009

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.

Dave Bonta February 10, 2009

I watch a porcupine waddling toward the porch in my camcorder’s small screen, how the spines move as its fat flesh jiggles. Rain on the way.