Cool and humid. A phoebe dives for an insect and gives it to a fledgling sitting on a walnut branch. In the shadows of the trees, white masses of mountain laurel blossoms.
mountain laurel
Unseasonably cold, with the sun so bright and air so clear, the few clouds seem lost, like guests at the wrong party. Leathery old mountain laurel leaves look fresh and new.
The waxy surfaces of laurel and rhododendron leaves glitter in the sun. A bluebird sits silently on a branch, waiting for insects to stir.
At blue noon the wailing of fire engines. Mountain laurel leaves gleam in the sun. A cold ladybird’s slow plod.
Last night’s torrential rain has given way to wind, sunlight shimmering on the flooded stream and the waxy leaves of mountain laurel.
Cloudless and still. Sun gleams on the laurel under the trees. I hear the crunch of footsteps on the gravel road from a hundred yards away.
Two wild turkeys cross the road into the woods, their dark feathers shining in the sun as they disappear into the equally lustrous laurel.
Fast moving cumulus clouds. When the sun comes out, it glistens on the mountain laurel leaves in the woods and in the yard, the periwinkle.
On a bright morning, I can almost forget how many of the laurel bushes shining in the sun are sick and dying. A titmouse’s monotonous call.
A high-pitched barking at sunrise. Three lost dogs come running through the mountain laurel, metal tags jangling around their necks.
Shreds of clouds disintegrate as they drift toward the east. Sun on wind-tossed mountain laurel leaves—the whole hillside shimmers.
All up the hillside, the glossy leaves of mountain laurel shimmer in the sun and wind. Minute snowflakes from who knows where pelt my cheek.
During a lull in the snow, our neighbor drives past on the tractor. A deer leaps up from a patch of laurel, runs a few steps and stops.
The first bright sun since the leaves came down. I’m dazzled by the hillside of gleaming laurel interspersed with white flashes—junco wings.