A Carolina wren trills from the springhouse attic window, and a winter wren answers from under a pile of brush with ten seconds of song.
springhouse
A squirrel emerges from the springhouse’s tiny attic vent and slides head-first toward the ground. A patch of sun shimmers in the goldenrod.
A chipmunk’s steady drip. How many years have I been sitting here? I remember each stage in the lichen’s conquest of the springhouse roof.
Beside the springhouse, the twittering zoom of a hummingbird’s courtship dive: from sunlight into cattail shadows and back. Tanager song.
Soft applause from the road bank: a doe’s ears flapping as she shakes her head to chase away the flies.
Two white-tailed deer leap through the dried goldenrod and asters beyond the springhouse, surfacing, diving—dolphins in a brown sea.
Carolina wrens counter-singing from the springhouse, her Zzzzit! simultaneous with his TeakettleTeakettleTeakettle: the sound of the steam.
The air is still and quiet. In the springhouse meadow, the ears of a doe appear above the goldenrod, pivoting like leaves in a private wind.
A crashing sound from the springhouse meadow: a pair of bucks chasing each other, frisky as fawns and neck-deep in weeds they do not eat.
A fawn follows its mother through the springhouse meadow, spots like stars on a pelt dark with moisture from the sopping-wet vegetation.