Dawn: a blurry moon just above the trees losing its glow. The wood thrush’s ethereal song gives way to a red-eyed vireo sounding like a wind-up bird, going at twice normal speed.
moon
4/30/2024
The sun rose while I was watching the moon. Now there’s a black-throated blue warbler at the woods’ edge whispering its three-syllable song.
4/29/2024
Night and day overlap as the moon rises through the trees, serenaded by a family of barred owls, while the first song sparrow and cardinal herald the dawn. Then the whip-poor-will begins to shriek.
4/26/2024
Out before dawn, I find moonlight in my chair. A song sparrow sings one phrase, possibly without waking up. A quiet trickle from the spring.
3/30/2024
Red sunrise. To the south, the moon has gone flat on one side so it resembles a giant ear for the first crow to yell into when it created the world. The chanting phoebe clearly has no inkling.
3/24/2024
Clear and cold as the moon’s searchlight sinks through ridgetop trees. Dawn stains the east. The cardinal wakes up, full of cheer.
2/27/2024
Swans before dawn, their moonlit cries drifting down from over the north end of the mountain. A quiet trickle from the stream. The scent of thawed earth.
2/25/2024
Red dawn with a moon like a searchlight sinking into the powerline cut. The cardinal debuts a new call with what sounds like a glottal stop in the middle: chee-er, chee-er.
2/4/2024
A song sparrow singing at first light as if it were March already. A quiet trickle from the spring. The moon gapes through the treetops, pale and hollowed out.
1/29/2024
Dawnish. Wind makes the big dial thermometer squeak and shiver. A flat-tire moon goes in and out of fast-moving clouds.
1/5/2024
One last glimpse of the crescent moon before it’s swallowed by clouds. The typewriter sound of squirrel claws on bark, chasing. It’s cold.
1/1/2024
Overcast and quiet before dawn. A half-inch of fresh snow sticks to everything, glowing faintly in the light of a hidden moon.
12/8/2023
The moon’s bright bowl full of darkness rises through the trees at dawn and vanishes into clouds. Two great-horned owls on the valley side of the mountain carry on duetting.
10/29/2023
Dead stillness giving way to rain at dawn, in the glowing absence of the full moon.