Snow whitening the lilac. And here come the cardinals to pose photogenically in the midst of it: loud and obvious red; subtle tan and ochre.
lilac
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.
The French lilac, unseasonably green; Japanese barberries flaunting too-numerous fruit; me with my steaming Ethiopian brew, rain in my face.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A phoebe darts and hovers, gleaning insects off the wet weeds. Yesterday, I watched a phoebe help feed four catbird fledglings in the lilac.
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.
Sun in the treetops where a catbird improvises. From the lilac, the song of a towhee, incorporated seconds later into the catbird’s stream.
The flower heads on the white lilac are half-brown now. Two phoebes take turns flying into the bush, momentarily quelling insistent peeps.
At 6:00, the sky grows dark again as a storm approaches. Wood thrushes start back up. The lilac’s white torches all point at the ground.