A small plane with a loud motor is the only thing in the sky besides the sun. In its wake, the distant cooing of a dove. I notice that the dead heads now outnumber the living in my iris patch.
iris
Rain tapers off by mid-morning, each iris leaf laden with shining encapsulations of the white sky. A small dinosaur known as a great-crested flycatcher calls at the woods’ edge.
Neither too cool nor too warm, with clouds yet to find the sun. The irises are at their peak of blooming in my front garden, and at the woods’ edge where several yellow ones survive as relics from an era of moved lawns and decorative fences fifty years ago.
It’s been raining for hours, drumming on the leaves and dripping from the furred tongues of irises, which sway ever so slightly on their tall stalks.
The rains continue. The last peony blossom collapsed in the night, and the last purple iris has opened. Where mowed grass had died, there’s a blush of green.
Overcast and cool. In the garden, lily-of-the-valley flowers have faded to brown like old lampshades, while irises stick out their velvety tongues.
If the sun isn’t going to shine, we still have the irises, the evening primroses, and a goldfinch fresh from his bath: a trifecta of yellow.
At the woods’ edge, three yellow hats: iris gone feral. A hummingbird rockets back and forth through the lilac, showing off for a female.
The chickadee flies in with food and flies out with a fecal sac. In the meadow, yellow iris like a tour group in a crowd of dame’s-rocket.
The first purple irises are opening along the rock wall, their three petals descending like the landing gear on spaceships.
The first irises have opened in the night, some with red and yellow tongues, some with violet, sampling the morning air.
Two grackles appear at the woods’ edge, iridescent black against the brightest green of the year. In the garden, the first yellow iris.