Another cool and quiet autumn morning. The snakeroot has faded to a blowsy brown just as the goldenrod reaches its pinnacle of yellow.
snakeroot
August 27, 2023
Crystal-clear and still. At first light, the soft calls of wood thrushes, no doubt tired and hungry after their all-night flights. Pale crowds of snakeroot seem to glow.
August 22, 2023
A gray squirrel with a nearly white tail scampering up the road draws my attention to the white snakeroot—banks of it just coming into bloom.
September 3, 2022
As above, so below: white sky, white snakeroot. A hummingbird buzzes in to bother the jewelweed below the porch.
August 20, 2021
Cardinal joined by a whippoorwill. The white shapes in the yard turn out to be snakeroot.
September 18, 2020
First light. Ghostly figures in the meadow shrink into common snakeroot. The distant gargle of a truck jake-breaking off the interstate.
September 24, 2018
The flat white sky prompts me to notice that the white snakeroot—a plant that clouds up the meadow, being toxic to deer—has gone to seed.
August 31, 2016
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.
August 30, 2015
Wasps wallow through mounds of snakeroot flowers. At the woods’ edge, a yellow leaf trapped by a caterpillar thread never stops twirling.
August 22, 2015
Even at late morning, it’s chilly when the sun goes in. The yard is now white with snakeroot flowers. The distant sound of a power saw.
August 16, 2014
A scattering of white in my overgrown garden: soapwort, bindweed, fleabane, snakeroot. The sky brightens. A towhee calls from the lilac.
August 31, 2013
In the half-light of dawn, white snakeroot glowing in the meadow, the unending shhhhh of tree crickets, clatter of a squirrel venturing out.
September 9, 2012
Scattered drips of dew from the top roof. A doe and fawn ghost by along the woods’ edge, the fawn’s spots as faded as snakeroot flowers.
September 12, 2009
Rain starts almost imperceptibly, thickening from shimmer to mist to curtain. Early goldenrod and white snakeroot are both fading to brown.