As cold as yesterday but with orange-bellied clouds and a wind. A tulip tree seed helicopters into the yard and rises up over the house.
tulip tree
October 21, 2022
Two degrees below freezing and clear at sunrise. A falling tulip tree leaf lands with an audible tick.
July 20, 2022
Cool at sunrise with a restless breeze. The big tulip tree at the woods’ edge drops a few more drought-yellowed leaves.
July 7, 2022
Clear sky, sun in the treetops… “Cloudy conditions will continue all day,” my phone admonishes. The big tulip tree releases a yellow leaf.
May 9, 2022
Sunrise. A squirrel carries a freshly dug-up walnut in its mouth. The tulip tree’s leaves are already big enough to wave like a rave of one.
April 26, 2022
The tulip trees have burst their buds—a gray-green haze. Hermit thrush in my left ear, thunder in my right.
April 15, 2022
Clear and cold. Sunlight fills the tall tulip tree, which is shaped like martini glass, from the top down. A woodpecker duets with his echo.
April 1, 2022
After sunrise, a brief interval of soft light before rain clouds close in. The tulip tree hosts a slow-moving ménage à trois of squirrels.
October 30, 2021
Fog. A squirrel is peeling ribbons of bark from the branches of the big tulip tree. And all these years I’ve been blaming porcupines!
October 17, 2021
Cloudy and cold. In the thinning treetops, a squirrel takes a wild leap to lose a suitor. Tulip tree samaras helicopter down.
October 7, 2021
Rain and fog. With the goldenrod going gray, the yellow has moved from the meadow to the woods’ edge: spicebush, walnut, birch, elm, tulip tree.
August 10, 2021
Tulip poplar leaves waving like four-fingered, cartoon hands. A shimmer of mizzle thickens into rain. The Carolina wrens go on dueting.
August 2, 2021
Rising late, I wonder what I’ve missed out on. The sun goes in. Two brown creepers scuttle around to the far side of the big tulip tree.
April 23, 2021
Bright sun. High in the tulip tree, among the shining leaf nubbins, two robins meet for combat and tumble to the ground.