Something sets off the neighbor’s rooster, and a few moments later a raven flies past the porch, croaking like a duck with laryngitis.
raven
Filmy-winged gnats are blown past the porch, pale as snowflakes in the strong sun. Overhead, the fierce cries of ravens playing in the wind.
Ten degrees above freezing at sunrise. A squirrel leaps through the soft snow like a salmon swimming upstream. High overhead, a raven calls.
Two ravens hang high against the clouds without flapping a wing. Two more appear and attack, croaking, and all four soar off to the north.
Alarm calls of jays give way to crows; the crows to a raven. With each corvid, the cry comes from higher in the blue—and closer to the bone.
Scattered crow caws coalesce into a flash mob filled with rage, but dissipate in less than a minute. High up in the clouds, a raven croaks.
The clouds of white snakeroot in my yard host one tiger swallowtail, glamorous as a celebrity in a trailer court. A raven’s metallic croak.
Sun in the treetops and a raven’s hollow, metallic croak. A fly buzzes through the porch without slowing down.
Strands of caterpillar silk float on the breeze, appearing and disappearing as they pass through sunbeams. Ravens’ falsetto alarm calls.
The air is so clear, I can make out grains of pollen drifting back and forth against the dark woods. The shrill alarm-calls of a raven.
Another cloudless day. The first blue-headed vireo sings softly in the woods. Overhead, angry croaks of a raven being dive-bombed by a crow.
Overcast. Two ravens glide along the ridge, circle back and land in the treetops. A hunter in gray forest camouflage emerges from the woods.
Another cool and cloudless morning. The hollow echoes with the croaks of ravens. A pileated woodpecker taps on the side of my house.
Another cloudless morning. Chipmunks chase each other through a bar of sunlight on the forest floor. The distant, metallic calls of a raven.