Out of Season
- At September 30, 2011
- By Dian Day
- In The Big Backyard
2
There’s something about finding a single wild strawberry in autumn, ripe for eating. It’s a late bloomer, a tortoise, a valiant effort, a Rocky, an old college try, a small miracle. My mouth waters, tasting red, sweet, sunshine. I carry it protectively in my hand for almost an hour, my palm damp in the out-of-season heat. When I give it away, I can taste gift.
Stone Tree
- At September 23, 2011
- By Dian Day
- In Travelling
- 0
The tree is as huge as a Greek column in the Doric style. Buried for three hundred million years, it emerges from the cliff like a lost civilization. Looking at this length of stone, it is almost easier to believe in Artemis, Demeter or Hermes than in the swamp forests that existed here so long before the dinosaurs.
Revealed
- At September 15, 2011
- By Dian Day
- In The Big Backyard
- 0
The path is so overgrown that I have to cut my way through with long-handled pruning shears. When I look up, an abandoned nest is right above my head; I could reach out and touch it, lift it from the tree, carry it home. But I back away carefully, as it it were a living thing that might be startled by sudden movement. I don’t think it is a trick of the light; I am sure I see it breathing.
Beavers or Trees
- At September 12, 2011
- By Dian Day
- In The Big Backyard
- 0
Overnight, a small pond has been transformed into a large one. Trees stand knee-deep in water, unable to wade to higher ground. This slow drowning will be only one of the costs the beavers will exact from this landscape, though they have made a home of startling beauty. Briefly, I contemplate pulling the sticks and branches and boughs from the culvert, but quickly I recognize I can’t do the math: How many trees is a beaver worth? And how many beavers, one tree?
Swallows
- At September 06, 2011
- By Dian Day
- In Travelling
- 0
For many years I have mourned the loss of swallows from farmyards; but this night, no barns in sight, the hundreds and thousands of flickering birds congregate in an evening dinner-dance that commands the whole of the fading ultraviolet sky. We paddle through the cloud of hurtling birds: silent planets amidst a darklight meteor shower.