November 2011
3 posts
Blue sky, white frost. Between, bare limbs with a few last leaves hanging, the world is in an O’Henry mood.
Winged euonymus red as the tip of a safety match, sugar maple orange as the flame, and I, breathing deep the cool air of November.
Kale for dinner, succulent in soup with sausage and pasta. Turnips in the bin, crunchy and just a little hot on the tongue.
October 2011
10 posts
A cold west wind makes the dogwood leaves shiver. The ash branches bare and gray against the blue sky.
In back of the refrigerator drawer, I find the last of the season’s fresh peaches. What is it they put in those cans to alter the taste so?
A charcoal sky leaches color from the day, rain falls in occasional drops. I go back in the house for my black coat
A ray of rising sun spotlights the rose bush beside the Episcople church; its blooms more red than drops from the sacred heart.
The Cheshire-Cat moon grins down on me as I speed behind my headlights through the dark morning, headed for the navy-blue horizon.
The wind is SE, the temperature 40. I sip black coffee from a white porcelain mug, the moon hangs in the east like the Cheshire cat’s smile.
These chilly mornings we keep the windows closed and I have lost the birds’ dawn song. Instead I hear the refigerator’s hum.
From 10,000 feet, subdivisions — roads to nowhere intersected by a series of broad driveways — are Frankenstein scars on the landscape.
A wisp of cloud floats by the porthole just as the airplane bucks. I startle. Suddenly the fluff below looks sinister.
From the jet, I look down on Georgia as on a nicely colored topographical map. A red-clay muddy river runs through dark pines.
On the runway at Detroit, I watch the blue engine cowling as, over the jet’s white body, a reflected cloud eats a reflected sun.
September 2011
4 posts
I gaze at the topography of clouds stretching to the edge of the world. This small airbus is like a fly circling over a lemon meringue pie.
I went walking in the MIddlesex Fells yesterday morning and there were clouds of mosquitoes; I even got a bit on my eyelid.
The screech owl calls in the gloaming, dusk and dawn; the pewees begin with sunrise, I find myself humming old ballads in a minor key.
August 2011
11 posts
Awakened at 5 by the perfume of tomato sauce: my night-owl son storing up the garden’s yellow, red, purple largesse. Indiscriminately fine.
Silent & still the day, sunshine & a few cabbage whites, tomatoes ripen on the vine. August days have a sameness that might last forever.
The big owls call in the hour before dawn. The rising sun shines in shafts through the trees, illuminating mist, making columns of light.
Clouds roll in from the southeast, obscure the humpbacked moon, carry a menace of distant thunder. I see a few red leaves on the dogwood.
The pewee calls its name wistfully again and again to begin this August Sunday. Overnight an orb weaver has built between shade and lamp.
These cool August mornings are still, as though waiting. The cicadas have gone quiet. The pewee lands briefly in the dogwood, flits away.
Such an hysteria of air-dancing men, jerking & flailing their arms in parking lots by pizza joints and payday lenders. What do they know?
Ambulance at quarter to 3, its strobe & siren rip the dark silence. When it’s out of range, I hear a silence of katydids outside my window
I contemplate the number 39: pleasingly rotund, divisible by 2 prime numbers, stable as a triangle. The number of intelligence and charm.
That strange hollow chuck I heard turned out to be a turkey aimless in the driveway. How long her neck, how white her lizard head.
A thunderstorm rolls in an hour before dawn: distant grumbling thunder, a whisper of wind, a rustling of rain in the leaves. I sip coffee.
May 2011
7 posts
Thunder, lightening, the siren scream, the robotic voice of the weather radio. I sense a motif to this spring. But today i heard the oriole.
Mares & foals in lush pastures crossed by streams, clouds of white black locust blooms among the trees, the oceanic roar of traffic on I-64.
My first book review! http://tinyurl.com/3fbcx7a
Morning is a grackle like a dart thrown across my window. A ray of sunshine spotlights a wine cork fallen under the cherry drop-leaf.
The dryer clicks, the space heater hums, the thermometer stands at 34 degrees, & the weather map, once red with flood, is blue with frost.
Morning is mist on the meadow glowing in the rising sun, freckled with diamond rain drops. The locusts are in full bloom. My feet are cold.
Another dim day. The dogwood blooms are turning brown and falling to the muddy ground. The birds are silent.
April 2011
9 posts
Our grass is virginal, almost aboriginal, like a jungle. But here’s a day of sun, we’ll wrangle out the mower. Oh what fun.
A patch of sunlight on the grass — grown higher than that grazing grackle’s head. For this one day, the rain has stopped.
She had a voice like a horn in a parking garage, like playing trombone with only a mouthpiece. like warning sirens on a Wednesday morning.
Is there a virus currently associated with FB?
Another day begins with squalls and warnings. The robot voice of the weather radio competes with the mourning of the dove.
A towhee whistles as I sit with my back to the open window. It’s close enough to be in the room. In the distance, thunder rumbles again.
Doves & sparrows glean among bluebells that surround the feeder where last month was bare ground. A goldfinch flits through the dogwood.
The wind is northeast today so Hamlet may know a hawk from a handsaw. A grackle walks up the drive, selects a blade of dry grass, and flies.
After a night of wind & storm sirens, sleepy huddling in the basement, narcissus are laid flat by the wind but the dogwood is in its glory.
February 2011
14 posts
Bluster, snow, creeks running out of their banks, a crow rides the wind but makes no headway. Whoa, calendar! March hasn’t got here yet.
Five horses and a mule stand rumps to the wind, ears laid back against the downpour. Tomorrow they’ll crop spring grass.
RT @tomtomorrow: How you can help Wisconsin protesters: http://tinyurl.com/4vnfyvr Please RT.
A birthday balloon caught in the drab stubble of the fence row, deflating, colors flaking. Let the President’s Day festivities begin.
A splash of pigeon feathers on the courthouse lawn beside the Viet Nam memorial. The dome shines copper in the sun, the flag snaps.
In the north ell of the house, bluebells are poking little green noses out to sniff the air. A neighbor plows neat dark rows in the sod.