Cloudy at sunrise. The bump bump of a groundhog returning to a burrow under the house. A dragonfly cuts back and forth across the yard.
sunrise
7/3/2024
A deer moves through the sunrise meadow, head and ears visible above the weeds. The furious chittering of a small flock of goldfinches swirling past.
6/23/2024
Overcast. Sunrise is when the crows wake up. A large brown moth tucks itself into the eaves.
6/21/2024
A hazy sunrise for the first full day of astronomical summer. The feral garlics are raising crane’s-bill heads.
6/19/2024
Mist rising from the meadow. In the woods, one moss-covered bole of a black birch is illuminated by a random shaft of sun.
6/14/2024
Overcast at sunrise. The jumping spider who lives under my chair comes topside for a brief scuttle about. A red-bellied woodpecker bangs on his morning drum.
6/8/2024
Cool and crystal-clear. The first sun to reach the meadow tries out a cage of chicken wire made for a volunteer tulip tree seedling, turning it into a shining tower above the weeds.
6/1/2024
Long johns on the first of June! 41F/5C. And the sun already in the treetops with the goldfinches.
5/31/2024
Cold and crystal-clear. Sound is out of the east, where the quarry machines grind, giving the rising sun an industrial soundtrack.
5/20/2024
Fog lifts to reveal blue sky, the sun in the treetops. A scarlet tanager hurtles past the porch with a second in close pursuit. The morning’s first itch prickles the back of my hand.
5/14/2024
A break in the clouds allows a bit of sunrise to stain the treetops, where a noisy kestrel gets dive-bombed by a robin. A pair of black cherry trees are in bloom—white snouts pointing in all directions.
5/8/2024
A damp sunrise after thunderstorms in the night. Waves of scent from the lilac, whose blossoms are beginning to fade and droop. The nonstop chatter of goldfinches.
5/5/2024
Gloomy sunrise, with a cloud snagged on the treetops, leaking rain. A titmouse takes advantage of a lull in the chorus to hype his own claim. A tanager’s plucked string.
5/2/2024
A warm breeze at sunrise. My reading is interrupted by an unfamiliar trill: a redheaded woodpecker in the dead crown of the tallest black locust. I watch through binoculars as he works over the tree and himself, probing under bark one moment and under his wing the next.