Cold, and an iron wind. Two murders of crows rage at each other from the crowns of adjacent oaks, the sunrise slippery on their napes.
oaks
11/8/2010
Bright and cold. A blue jay practices its red-tailed hawk scream at the top of a scarlet oak, half the leaves still there and gleaming.
11/7/2010
The doe’s gray coat blends into the November woods, her two grown fawns still brown. They nuzzle through the leaf duff, feasting on acorns.
11/5/2010
The wind rustles in the crown of one red oak; all the others are still. A train whistle. The light patches in the clouds fade to blue.
11/1/2010
The yard is alive with robins foraging, chasing, tut-tutting, rust-orange breasts the color of the oaks, all aglow in the mid-morning sun.
10/1/2010
Clear and windy. Twelve crows fly sideways in tight formation over the treetops, the still-green oak leaves gilded by the sun.
9/2/2010
A steady clatter of acorns from a squirrel foraging in the crown of an oak. Could it be dropping them on purpose for later retrieval?
4/28/2010
Windy at sunrise, and the thermometer’s arrow just past 32. I scan the low spots for frost, thinking about the oaks’ Rapunzel blooms.
4/14/2010
Thick ground fog, one degree below freezing. The trees grow sharper as the sun begins to blur. Please don’t flower yet, I tell the oaks.
11/8/2009
Halfway up the ridge, a dangling oak limb broken by last month’s snowstorm suddenly crashes to the ground, still clinging to its leaves.
10/30/2009
Rust-colored leaves hiss and rustle under a slate-gray sky. A blue jay struggles to fly with its gullet full of nuts.
9/11/2009
Riddle me this: Because of the heavy acorn crop, next summer we will see more roses. And this: the oak forest moves north on corvid wings.
11/16/2007
A strong gust of wind brings a red oak leaf into my lap. I watch high-flying leaves cross paths with a flock of waxwings.