Warm and humid, with a sickle moon high overhead. I battle mosquitos in between reading about eastern equine encephalitis on my phone.
moon
August 26, 2024
A half moon hangs overhead, its light lost to the dawn. A bat makes one last circuit of the yard, where the white tops of snakeroot are beginning to show.
July 27, 2024
Sun in the treetops. I try to re-find the half moon—nothing but goldfinches.
May 27, 2024
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.
April 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.
April 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.
April 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.
March 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.
March 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.
February 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.
February 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.
February 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.
January 29, 2024
Dawnish. Wind makes the big dial thermometer squeak and shiver. A flat-tire moon goes in and out of fast-moving clouds.
January 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.