White sky. The soft calls of a pair of downy woodpeckers on adjacent trees. Four chickadees on a high-speed chase tear through the lilac.
lilac
January 12, 2009
The moon comes out, and there’s the rabbit, crouching next to the lilac. It races across the driveway and disappears into the cattails.
January 11, 2009
December 21, 2008
November 23, 2008
November 13, 2008
November 10, 2008
The urgent grunts of a buck in rut chasing two does through the laurel, their movements easy to follow now that the trees are nearly bare.
October 28, 2008
The French lilac, unseasonably green; Japanese barberries flaunting too-numerous fruit; me with my steaming Ethiopian brew, rain in my face.
October 8, 2008
Clouds at dawn change from red to orange to pale yellow, like black gum trees in reverse. A towhee lands in the lilac—a splash of rose.
September 25, 2008
No yellow in the lilac yet, but a growing spectrum of greens. Random clatters from the new house site, where a green metal roof is going up.
September 19, 2008
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.
August 9, 2008
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.
July 10, 2008
A phoebe darts and hovers, gleaning insects off the wet weeds. Yesterday, I watched a phoebe help feed four catbird fledglings in the lilac.
June 23, 2008
Four titmice flit about the yard. The dead elm twigs that are closest to the lilac have acquired a greenish tinge. A beetle’s zigzag flight.