5:45 a.m. 64 degrees, wind NW 0 mph. Sky: clear above a ground fog, thick and mobile that rolls up the valley, often to the treetops; leaf condensation sounds like rain, drips like rain, feels like rain; in the east, the moon, a bit less than half, peeks through the mist. Permanent streams: inspired by last night's thunderstorm; upper, purls in the narrow, water-deep segment, mumbles in the broad, shallow-water segment; lower, puddle chain extends closer to the wetlands before petering out. Intermittent streams: moist; rock-ribs slick. Wetlands: fog a meringue; far shore a memory. Pond: still and misty; no sign of activity on the surface; just beyond the south shore, a red squirrel moves along an avenue of pine limbs, tree to tree, chattering. Orb webs sag, strands strung with dew; concentric necklaces, each bead an inverted reflection of the valley.
DOR: small green frog (Lithobates clamitans), a brief terrestrial life.
AOR: hermit thrush, hushed and hurried, hops along the margin of the road.
Three hummingbirds (no males), in the dimness of dawn, chaos around the feeder. Pewee, veiled by fog, whistles from several outposts as I walk down the driveway. One faithfully persistent red-eyed vireo . . . but just one. A yellow-billed cuckoo, a sober demeanor, a sulking behavior, gives voice to the density of the fog, a series of wooden knocks. At home, Casey's walnut, a veritable apartment complex of webworm tents, at least thirteen on one side, some sprawling, waits for a cuckoo . . . needs a cuckoo, desperately, before caterpillars desolate the foliage. Whenever I walk past my bedroom window, I pause, hoping to glimpse a cuckoo, hunched over, tweezing caterpillars from webs.
No matter how apparently bland the sunrise, or forlorn the song of the pewee, sunrise still nourishes. Ushers me into a new day, as though dawn's soft hand leads the way.