Out before sunrise to catch the coolness, I rub a jewelweed poulice against a small poison ivy rash on my middle finger, feeling the itch subside and contemplating the yard, where poison ivy and jewelweed freely intermingle.
sunrise
June 23, 2025
Clear at sunrise with an eyelash moon and a deer grazing just inside the woods’ edge. A Cooper’s hawk calls from atop the tallest black locust and flies off to the east.
June 11, 2025
Cool and mostly clear at sunrise. A goldfinch chirping in pentameter. The cerulean warbler changes trees—a blue-striped blur.
June 6, 2025
Sunrise hidden by fog, but already there’s a background buzz of periodical cicadas. A cerulean warbler sings at the woods’ edge, as usual, long after the wood thrush has lapsed into silence.
June 3, 2025
A lurid sun glimmers through high-altitude haze. Somewhere in the deep grass a hen turkey calls to her poults, as goldfinches party it up in the treetops.
May 11, 2025
A few clouds at sunrise. Goldfinches chatter over the rap battles of ovenbirds and vireos. Bracken leaves are still opening in the yard—feathers on feathers.
May 6, 2025
Foggy at sunrise. A turkey gobbles non-stop from up in the field, and the woods ring with vireos and ovenbirds. At the edge of the porch, a gray squirrel nuzzles her almost-grown offspring.
May 1, 2025
A wood thrush is singing at the edge of the woods at sunrise—that old sweet song. Behind him, the tall hawthorn has just come into bloom.
April 30, 2025
Clear and cool at sunrise. A feral cat slinks through the coverts at the woods’ edge, pursued by a small, mostly silent entourage of chickadees and titmice.
April 28, 2025
Sunrise gutters in a gray bank of clouds. It’s cold. My breath hangs in the air like winter’s ghost.
April 27, 2025
The sun climbs through blossoming oaks whispery with wind. Pileated woodpeckers exchange volleys of thunder. A downy woodpecker rattles like a beggar with a cup.
April 24, 2025
Clear and cool at sunrise, with ovenbirds calling in the woods and a red-winged blackbird in the meadow. Two squirrels climb high into the canopy to taste the oak blossoms.
April 20, 2025
A cooler sunrise this morning with wind from the north. A ruby-crowned kinglet warbles up and down the scale. A hen turkey picks her way through spring onions.
April 17, 2025
Clear and still with frost in the yard and the gibbous moon caught in the treetops like a deflated balloon. A brown creeper sprials up a walnut tree. The sun comes up.