When the wind stops, the big locust tree that’s been creaking ominously falls silent, and the long cattail leaves all hold their poses.
wind
August 11, 2015
The wind from a distant storm sends yellowed walnut leaves spinning to the ground. In the meadow, the first goldenrod blossoms are opening.
July 6, 2015
Overcast but no rain yet, and a rumor of wind so faint only the tulip polar leaves pick it up. A syrphid fly hovers an inch from my glasses.
July 1, 2015
The sun makes a brief appearance; a breeze picks up. The bluebottle fly moves to the lee side of the railing and rubs its forefeet together.
June 19, 2015
Unsettled weather; the leaves on the trees turn this way and that. Two turkey vultures circle high above the ridge, rocking in the wind.
June 9, 2015
Despite the constant agitation of the tulip tree’s thin-stemmed leaves, its eponymous sex organs barely move—golden cups open to the clouds.
May 20, 2015
Cold and windy. Maple seeds spin down from the overcast sky, as if some psychotic cherub were plucking the wings from chitinous angels.
May 13, 2015
It’s cold. Leaves blow backwards in the wind. But squirrels must be coming back into heat: four of them spiral down a locust at top speed.
April 21, 2015
A red-tailed hawk struggles to stay aloft against the wind. A spit of rain. Then the clouds disappear as quickly as yesterday’s hail stones.
April 11, 2015
Windy and cold. A ladybird beetle creeps slowly across the porch floor, warmed by intermittent sun. Buds swell yellow on the lilac bush.
April 5, 2015
Warm and windy. Great mobs of dried leaves cartwheel out of the woods. A piece of milkweed down drifts past, liberated from its seed.
March 8, 2015
Windy and bright. A hawk flies out of the woods and spirals into the blue. I sit reading a 2500-year-old poem, its heart-ache still fresh.
March 3, 2015
I come out to find my chair at the end of the porch and turned to the north. A jay is doing his best to reply to a raven’s imperious croaks.
March 2, 2015
An oak leaf wanders into the yard, resting in the lee of a snowdrift on its five curled tips before cart-wheeling off into the field.