We've had a bit of rain.... and mornings
with magical mists while I sit drinking
coffee in the moss garden.
The same brown mossy hill I photographed in an earlier
post bejeweled after a rainy night. Today it is back
to brown, but more rain is expected and this
hill knows how to sing exuberant songs of green
after a good shower.
Gentle ferns do a lovely dance with the wind,
swaying back and forth and dipping into the birdbath,
kissing the stone bird. Not many birds come to this
little bath, but the chipmunks who live in the stump
behind it drink here in the morning before Pasha
is out and about.
I do love balancing stones in stacks around the gardens,
though they always lose their little top ones when
those same chipmunks perch there and eat acorns.
Though we really could use a week of rain, I have
been enjoying being outside in warm, dry
weather. Needing to write on the computer
today, I had the grand idea of setting up outside
in the moss garden. It has been such a sanctuary
this summer and mosquito free. Dappled sunshine all day
and cool with gentle afternoon breezes.
Strange and wonderful this world of technology,
that I could bring my computer outside and still
check email listening to the Baroque iTunes
channel thanks to invisible waves passing through
my router.... wonder if the sound inaudible to me
is too much for the dragonflies...
"Storm at Dusk", watercolor 2009
On Sunday evening I was called out by frog songs and
the just past full moon. Sometimes at night,
in the midst of doing evening things like
reading or listening to music, I suddenly silence
the artificial noises and move outside into the
sounds of frogs or owls or coyotes,
or light rain on the
metal roof.
quick forest sketch
Sometimes the forest sounds are just so...
so soothing and wild that I am reminded of
the myriad of creatures living here as they
sing their night songs. Vast spaces
feel measurable when filled with the far-off call
of a coyote. Last night I could track the
path of one as it moved around the forest,
calling, calling as it traveled. A few
nights before I heard the clattering
of a branch as something lighted on it.
A moment later, as I climbed into bed,
the owl in a tree just eight feet from
my window began calling to its mate.
So close I could hear slight resonances
and nuances in her call that would be
lost at a distance. Off in the forest,
just at the edge of my hearing,
a faint response.
another drawing from my youth,
"HawK" - age 18 or so
Day sounds in the forest are often quite
shrill due to the resident ravens.
If you've never heard them, they are
amazingly diverse vocalists. Sometimes
sounding like other corvids - crows mostly-
but a bit more throaty, and other times
creating a variety of clicks and shrieks
that find me shaking my head or laughing.
three night bugs on a branch
As I sit here, a sweet buzzing of crickets fills
the night, a clear marking of the seasons
flowing toward late summer. July is frog songs,
August crickets. The buzz invites me to shrink
and travel the spaces between grasses,
imagining the night view of a bug.
